Quiz

BuzzFeed News Reporter

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Who has a better command of the English language: you or the commander in chief? (All answers follow Merriam-Webster, the AP Stylebook, and the <a href="https://www.buzzfeed.com/emmyf/buzzfeed-style-guide?utm_term=.xcGkbKKmkM#.cwl7AppQ7k">BuzzFeed Style Guide</a>.)

Who has a better command of the English language: you or the commander in chief? (All answers follow Merriam-Webster, the AP Stylebook, and the BuzzFeed Style Guide.)

Are You Better At Grammar Than President Trump?

Because of its errors in punctuation, capitalization, and syntax, no self-respecting English teacher would give this tweet a passing grade.

This tweet is a failing pile of garbage!

If an English teacher were deducting a letter grade for every error in this tweet, how would Trump do?

Transposing the second and third sentences would prevent the suggestion that "doing the right thing" is emphatically terrible. (Ivanka's name should not be set off in commas as a nonessential clause because Trump has another daughter. Remember Tiffany?)

Why would a grammarian, in particular, describe this as a terrible tweet?

"Mainstream" doesn't use a space — and obviously one needs to follow the period. (And although some may be tempted to add a comma after "MESS," that would be incorrect: This is a simple sentence with a compound verb, not a compound sentence.)

Which keyboard key(s) would you use to correct this tweet?

Middle East is never hyphenated, and the comma is a "splice": It joins two independent clauses. A dash, semicolon, or period (forming two sentences) would be acceptable substitutions.

How many punctuation marks are used _incorrectly_ in this tweet?

Because Trump is addressing Miller — using the vocative case — his name should be set off with commas. (And replacing the first "this morning" with "today" eliminates the unnecessary repetition.)

Which of the following edits fixes the grammar errors in this tweet?

Talk about big trouble — this tweet is really a fragment, with no clear subject, verb, or direct object. Disjointed clauses, a misplaced modifier, and incorrect punctuation only compound the confusion. Our drunk grammarian's revision recasts Trump's tweet within a coherent sentence structure — without altering the substance of his message.

After swallowing a stiff drink, how would a grammarian revise this tweet (within the 140-character confines of Twitter)?

The comma joins (or "splices") two independent clauses, an error that can usually be corrected with a conjunction or semicolon. In this case, however, using a period to form two separate sentences would make the most sense.

What is the name of the grammatical error in this screamy sentence?

Although there are several ways to improve this tweet, there is only one option that addresses the following errors: “lift ban” needs a hyphen as a modifier before “decision”; “in Boston” is a misplaced modifier; “federal court” is lowercased (it is not a proper name); “using” is not the appropriate verb here, especially in the context of precedent; and “lawyers” would only be preceded by “the” if he is referring to a specific group. And because “decision” and “ruling” are generally used interchangeably in news pieces, replacing one helps with readability and flow.

Which of the following would an English teacher accept as an appropriate revision of this tweet?

"Nonsense" has been one word for centuries, and "cover up" is only hyphenated as a noun (Trump uses it as a verb, so it should be two words).

How many hyphens are used _correctly_ in this tweet?

It's poorly written, but Trump's tweet correctly uses the subjunctive mood (which expresses a hypothetical as opposed to a statement of fact). The "scare quotes," however, are another story. They make sense for the indefinable "bad," but using them with "dudes" calls undue attention to the gender in this phrase — which is essentially a synonym for his arguably racist pet phrase "bad hombres." (And why is he using valuable Twitter real estate for scare quotes, when his other choice, screaming caps, would serve the same purpose?)

Which of the following revisions addresses the grammatical and/or punctuation errors in this tweet?

Again, Trump is using valuable real estate on an ordinal (_-th_) when all usage and style guides have judged it to be clumsy and unnecessary. American styling calls for the year to be set off with commas; in the UK and elsewhere where the month is reversed, no comma or ordinal is used (20 January 2017).

POTUS did not follow any conventional standards for the date in this tweet. Which of the following options is acceptable?

There are three errors, although Trump corrected only one when he reissued the tweet: "honored" is misspelled, and "people" and "president" are properly lowercased in these noun forms.

How many errors are there in this infamously deleted tweet?

Unless it is a proper noun, the word following a dash is not capitalized. There are several ways to fix this, but the only correct option here properly hyphenates "large-scale" as a modifier. (And because he refers to the media here as a monolithic group, it takes a singular verb.)

Which of the following changes would correct the punctuation and/or grammar error(s) in this tweet? (We're ignoring the interjection borrowed from a ’90s middle schooler, because it's just SAD!)

Trump changed the _Times_ article's use of _past perfect tense_ — used to distinguish between two events that both happened in the past, but at different times — to _present perfect_, which describes an event that still has some influence in the present. In fact, the recent phone call is the focus of the _Times_ piece — which he is misrepresenting by changing "had" to "has."

In this tweet, Trump misquoted the _New York Times_, whose article reads, “Mr. Xi … had not spoken to Mr. Trump since Nov. 14.” Besides punctuation errors, what is at issue here?

Your grammar is a little rusty — maybe you could hit up your old English teacher for an _apprentice_ship?

SAD!

You didn't spot \*all\* the grammatical errors in Trump's tweets, but you know the difference between a bad verb and an adverb. Well done!

Not terrible!

Terrific!

You are a true grammar expert. In fact, if grammar were the presidential election, you'd be POTUS. Congratulations!

Winning!

Thumbnail credit: Chip Somodevilla / Getty Images

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Are You Better At Grammar Than President Trump?

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