Merriam-Webster Dictionary’s Twitter Account Is Teaching Trump How Words Work (Again)

Later today, Sally Yates will give testimony to a Senate committee, to discuss conversations she had with the White House regarding Michael Flynn’s relationship with Russian officials. The former attorney general (an Obama-era holdover who served only 10 days under Trump after being fired for refusing to support the Muslim travel ban) reportedly warned the current administration that the then-national security advisor was lying about his contact with a Russian ambassador, and that the contradictions in his story could put the White House at risk.

Some Republicans also want to use this time to question Yates on potential information leaks. There’s no evidence of that sort of wrongdoing, but it makes for a fine bit of misdirection. So this Trump tweet from early Monday morning makes sense and fits that persecution narrative he’s so set on maintaining.

In addition to that being an unfounded insinuation (and potentially a serious case of witness tampering), there’s another glaring problem with the tweet. And while everyone, I’m sure, would love to focus on the actual issues here, the beautiful snarks over at Merriam-Webster are here to point out that our sitting President isn’t great with homonyms.

After a few hours, Trump replaced the tweet, because, well…

Are you feeling annoyance, disappointment, or surprise at that tweet? Yeah, them too. (Well, probably not surprise. This isn’t the first time Merriam-Webster has had to give Trump and his team lessons in how words work.)

Hmm, this subtle trolling has got me wondering what our good friend Pete Souza’s been up to.

Meetings, 2016.

A post shared by Pete Souza (@petesouza) on May 7, 2017 at 8:04am PDT

Yup, still going strong.

(via Twitter, image: Merriam-Webster.com)

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Vivian Kane

Vivian Kane (she/her) is the Senior News Editor at The Mary Sue, where she's been writing about politics and entertainment (and all the ways in which the two overlap) since the dark days of late 2016. Born in San Francisco and radicalized in Los Angeles, she now lives in Kansas City, Missouri, where she gets to put her MFA to use covering the local theatre scene. She is the co-owner of The Pitch, Kansas City’s alt news and culture magazine, alongside her husband, Brock Wilbur, with whom she also shares many cats.

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