National
Trump says he coined the phrase ‘prime the pump.’ Merriam-Webster begs to differ.
A dictionary’s Twitter account continues to be one of the most effective online trolls of President Donald Trump and his administration.
Merriam-Webster was back at it again Thursday, tweaking Trump over the claim that he invented the term “prime the pump.”
In an interview with The Economist, Trump said he came up with the term, which means “government investment expenditures designed to induce a self-sustaining expansion of economic activity,” according to Merriam-Webster.
After being asked whether it’s OK if his tax plan increases the deficit, Trump said, “It’s OK, because if won’t increase it for long. You may have two years where you’ll ... you understand the expression ‘prime the pump?’ ”
“Have you heard that expression used before? Because I haven’t heard it. I mean, I just ... I came up with it a couple of days ago and I thought it was good,” Trump said during a discussion about his tax plan.
[Team Trump’s greatest enemy on Twitter? A dictionary.]
Merriam-Webster, which has been using Trump’s words as fodder for its Twitter account throughout his presidency, quickly set the record straight.
'Pump priming' has been used to refer to government investment expenditures since at least 1933. https://t.co/VfkGwwzZRC
— Merriam-Webster (@MerriamWebster) May 11, 2017
Trump himself has used the phrase before, including in a Dec. 8, 2016 speech in Des Moines, Iowa, and during a Fox News interview in April.
Merriam-Webster also published a story about eight other phrases that have become associated with U.S. presidents, even if they didn’t invent them, including “malaise” (Jimmy Carter) and “sugarcoat” (Abraham Lincoln).
Merriam-Webster has more than 456,000 followers on its Twitter account, which it has used to hit Trump adviser Kellyanne Conway and Trump on several occasions, including over the use of words such as “feminism,” “alternative facts,” “unpresidented” and “claque.”
*whispers into the void* In contemporary use, fact is understood to refer to something with actual existence. https://t.co/gCKRZZm23c
— Merriam-Webster (@MerriamWebster) January 24, 2017
hombre: a man
— Merriam-Webster (@MerriamWebster) October 20, 2016
ombré: having colors or tones that shade into each other #debatenight
The dictionary also reported that it had seen a huge spike in searches for the word “showboat” Thursday. Trump referred to fired FBI Director James Comey as a “showboat” during his interview with NBC News that aired Thursday.
Lookups for 'showboat' are up 631,566%. https://t.co/dgTL2isNPW
— Merriam-Webster (@MerriamWebster) May 11, 2017
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