More experienced aides had learned that “best practices” for success with Donald Trump* meant coming in with one point: “ONE POINT. Just that one point.” But not everyone listened:
I saw a number of appointees as they dismissed the advice of wisened hands and went in to see President Trump, prepared for robust policy discussion on momentous national topics, and a peppery give-and-take. They invariably paid the price.
“What the fuck is this?” the president would shout, looking at a document one of them handed him. “These are just words. A bunch of words. It doesn’t mean anything.” Sometimes he would throw the papers back on the table. He definitely wouldn’t read them.
Anonymous, A Warning (New York: Twelve, 2019).
Ummm.... is "wisened" a word?
ReplyDeleteNot one I’d use. It’s in Webster’s Second as dialect/slang, but it’s gone from the Third. It appears in the OED only as a variant of wizen. The writing (or copyediting) in Anonymous’s book is sometimes careless. I think wiser would be a better choice here.
ReplyDeleteI think s/he means experienced vs. wise, though. I think of wizened as a physical description.
ReplyDeleteWisen having to do with wisdom is in the Second. I think wiser would still convey the idea that these other people have learned, or wised up, on the job.
ReplyDeleteI'm having a hard time with "wise" or "wiser" under the current conditions.
ReplyDeleteYes, it’s a grim idea of what it means to be wise. To be wise here is to dumb everything down for an erratic, inattentive, ill-informed tyrant.
ReplyDelete