On Monday, after Donald Trump claimed — without evidence — that the "dishonest" media has been deliberately covering up terrorist attacks, the White House released a list of 78 attacks it deemed underreported.
A White House official says "most" of these 78 attacks since 2014 have not received enough attention from media. pic.twitter.com/v66rcHxAFI
— Dan Merica (@danmericaCNN) February 7, 2017
Here are the last two pages of the WH list. They were cut off the initial tweet. pic.twitter.com/e72q51qQox
— Dan Merica (@danmericaCNN) February 7, 2017
Please note that many of these attacks received enormous media coverage — the Los Angele Times won a Pulitzer for its reporting on the 2015 shooting in San Bernadino — but also that there are a number of glaring typos in the list. Notably, the word "attacker" is often misspelled "attaker."
Fortunately, the helpful folks at the Merriam-Webster dictionary were available to offer the president and his team some advice:
Reminder that our app has voice search, so you can look a word up even if you're not sure how it's spelled. https://t.co/gAH5JjwU32 https://t.co/oyxk2zwpWO
— Merriam-Webster (@MerriamWebster) February 7, 2017
This is not the first time the Merriam-Webster social media team has trolled Trump. The dictionary livetweeted the second presidential debate, attempting to make sense of his, um, unique take on the English language.
Locker-room talk: "of, relating to, or suitable for use in a locker room...of a coarse or sexual nature." #debate https://t.co/nF13CR8Ldu
— Merriam-Webster (@MerriamWebster) October 10, 2016
Very good, Merriam-Webster. You've done a bigly job.