When words come out of politician's mouth that are linguistically incorrect, people see it reflecting their intelligence. Sarah Palin was called out …

- Ben Zimmer

Sometimes people are primed to hear in a certain way. When a word like braggadocious suddenly appears, it's like, 'What, is he just making that up?'

- Ben Zimmer

Donald Trump speaks extemporaneously, often through stream of consciousness, where it doesn't seem to follow a trajectory.

- Ben Zimmer

Hillary Clinton has been portrayed as robotic, someone who is trying to approximate real human emotion.

- Ben Zimmer

Weaponization of a candidate's words against him or her is something we're seeing a lot. The term Obamacare was used against Obama in a pejorative wa…

- Ben Zimmer

Even if you close your eyes, you'll still hear Donald Trump sniffing. Linguists might call [these visuals] paralinguistics, every form of information…

- Ben Zimmer

Donald Trump himself has an idiosyncratic speaking style that relies on simple words and phrases, which worked for him in the primaries but may be co…

- Ben Zimmer

Even though a definite article is supposed to bring something into focus, Donald Trump uses it in a very general way. It's seen by many observers as …

- Ben Zimmer