The dictionary and Donald Trump. Together they represent the bedrocks of our modern communication; without them, we would literally have nothing to say to each other, besides a bunch of primal grunts about how much we’re enjoying life. And yet, somehow the two cannot seem to get along. Trump and his associates misuse or misspell a word, and suddenly Merriam-Webster is right there, attempting to diminish their authority by pedantically insisting that words are spelled a certain way and mean things. It’s a feud that shows no signs of stopping, unless Trump adopts a policy of limiting his social media usage to just those messages that are screened by staff members for potential errors, and given the weight and consideration expected of an official missive from the President of the United States, or Rupert Murdoch finally buys the dictionary, whichever happens first. Until then, we have to watch as our two most prolific sources of words spar online—this time over whether Trump may or may not have invented the phrase “priming the pump.”
Trump made the claim in a recent interview with The Economist, in which he discussed how his tax plan will increase the deficit, but how this is okay because it’s merely “priming the pump.” It’s an eloquent turn of phrase—pithy, evocative, beautiful in its earthy simplicity. All the things you naturally associate with Donald Trump, because he came up with it:
ECONOMIST: Beyond that, it’s okay if the tax plan increases the deficit?
TRUMP: It is okay, because it won’t increase it for long. You may have two years where you’ll … you understand the expression “prime the pump”?
ECONOMIST: Yes.
TRUMP: We have to prime the pump.
ECONOMIST: It’s very Keynesian.