16,241

The Washington Post reports that Donald Trump* has made 16,241 false or misleading claims since becoming president:

In 2017, Trump made 1,999 false or misleading claims. In 2018, he added 5,689 more, for a total of 7,688. And in 2019, he made 8,155 suspect claims.

In other words, in a single year, the president said more than total number of false or misleading claims he had made in the previous two years. Put another way: He averaged six such claims a day in 2017, nearly 16 a day in 2018 and more than 22 a day in 2019.

As of Jan. 19, his 1,095th day in office, Trump had made 16,241 false or misleading claims.

A related post
MLK on the tone a president sets

MLK

Just one sentence this year:

Perhaps the most determining factor in the role of the federal government is the tone set by the Chief Executive in his words and actions.

Martin Luther King Jr., Why We Can’t Wait (1964).

King was born on January 15, 1929.

Word of the day: tranche

“A tranche of documents,” “a new tranche of documents” “a massive tranche of stunning documents”: I thought the word would be trending at Merriam-Webster. No soap.

M-W’s untrendy definition:

a division or portion of a pool or whole

specifically : an issue of bonds derived from a pooling of like obligations (such as securitized mortgage debt) that is differentiated from other issues especially by maturity or rate of return

And some background:

In French, tranche means “slice.” Cutting deeper into the word’s etymology, we find the Old French word trancer, meaning “to cut.” Tranche emerged in the English language in the late 19th century to describe financial appropriations. Today, it is often used specifically of an issue of bonds that is differentiated from other issues by such factors as maturity or rate of return. Another use of the French word tranche is in the French phrase une tranche de vie, meaning “a cross section of life.” That phrase was coined by the dramatist Jean Jullien (1854–1919), who advocated naturalism in the theater.

Just as television news often refers to history as “unfolding,” it often refers to documents (right now, those from Lev Parnas) as arriving in tranches. Use seems to beget further use, with one tranche leading to another. But’s difficult to think of this word as especially fitting or necessary. “More documents,” “a wealth of documents,” “a new group of documents,” “a massive release of documents”: any one of those phrases might serve as well.

[Notice the resemblance to trench, derived from the Anglo-French trencher, trenchier, “to cut.”]

“Sully” Sullenberger on stuttering

Chesley B. Sullenberger, responding to Lara Trump’s mockery of Joe Biden:

A speech disorder is a lot easier to treat than a character defect. You become a true leader, not because of how you speak, but because of what you have to say — and the challenges you have overcome to help others.

See also this Atlantic article about Joe Biden and stuttering.

Today’s Saturday Stumper

In the words of today’s Newsday Saturday Stumper, 2-D, six letters, “‘Yikes!’” Today’s puzzle, by Greg Johnson, might be the most challenging Stumper I’ve ever solved (one hour, one minute, and eight seconds worth of difficulty). Only sixty-six words, and by my count, just three gimmes: 5-D, four letters, “Pub pals”; 36-A, five letters, “Small ensembles”; 52-A, eight letters, “Beverage company founded in China by Germans.” And right at the center, three stepped eleven-letter clues across, and three stepped eleven-letter clues down. 2-Down!

At many points I thought I’d never get this puzzle done. For instance, when I hit 24-D, seven letters, “Carrot classification.” The only ways I classify carrots: raw and cooked. Or orange and not-orange. I love the other colors, and I think they taste different. Do they, really?

But I digress.

Question-and-answer pairs that I especially admire in today’s puzzle:

1-A, six letters, “Lose coverage.” Haha. Very funny.

18-A, six letters, “Starts to drag.” Nice misdirection.

20-A, seven letters, “Cosmo feature.” I’ve seen this feature, but never in a crossword.

34-A, eleven letters, “Hospital’s overhead helpers.” A novel answer, at least in my crossword experience.

35-A, eleven letters, “Light-sensitive circuit board coating.” Eh, wot? See 24-D.

46-A, three letters, “Brown, e.g.” I always appreciate cryptic terseness, or terse crypticness.

And above all, 14-D, eleven letters, which must be one of the all-time evil clues, “Life form.”

Never no spoilers: the answers are in the comments.

Stan Carey on the vocative comma

Editor and “swivel-chair linguist” Stan Carey explains the uses of the vocative comma: “Hello, vocative comma” (Macmillan Dictionary Blog).

After reading this column, I realized that I’ve been undermining the vocative comma for the past fifteen years. My post about how to e-mail a professor recommends beginning (in the absence of other instruction) with “Hi/Hello Professor [Blank].” No vocative comma. But as Carey’s column says, “In informal or unedited ­writing, the vocative comma is often skipped.”

I think that e-mail tends toward informality, enough so to omit the vocative comma. But not enough so to begin with, say, “Hey.”

“Good evening, news masochists”

[Cartoon of the Day, by Mort Gerberg. The New Yorker, January 16, 2020.]

I know this feeling. The problem: there isn’t a safe word.

“Some friends”

Dolly, as a ’toon, you should know how many “some” are.

Recently updated

“Close enough for jazz” Now with an added citation.

“Days”

The latest episode of BBC Radio 4’s Soul Music is devoted to the Kinks’ “Days,” written by Ray Davies. I found it an especially difficult and moving episode. Proceed with caution.

In 2017, Soul Music devoted an episode to Davies’s “Waterloo Sunset.”

Here’s Davies in 2010 performing both songs, dedicated to the Kinks’ bassist Pete Quaife (1943–2010).

[Because this episode has a fan recounting a brother’s suicide, I’ll share some numbers. In the United Kingdom: Samaritans, 116 123. In the United States: National Suicide Prevention Lifeline, 1-800-273-8255 (TALK).]