Wednesday, May 31, 2017

#COVFEFE. Covfefe? Yeah, covfefe.

Today, my Facebook newsfeed, and apparently the Twittersphere, is alight with references to "covfefe," a bit of gibberish tweeted by President Trump:

"Despite the constant negative press covfefe"

That's it. The tweet was an incomplete sentence that ended with a nonsense word, and multitudes are making great sport of figuring out what "covfefe" means. They find it highly comical.

To me, it appears obvious that the president meant to say something about "negative press coverage." The phrase makes sense, it is totally consistent with everything President Trump has ever said about the media, and "coverage" could become "covfefe," especially if you give up after trying two or three times to correct an original typo, and having no success - with phones that suggest spellings, correcting a typo can become an ordeal.

No, my question isn't, "What did he mean by 'covfefe'?" My question is, "Why did he send 'covfefe'?" Better yet, "Why did he tweet an incomplete sentence, nonsense word or not?"

I've never heard of that happening before. If nothing else, Donald J. Trump must be acknowledged as a master tweeter. Tweeting an incomplete sentence is totally out of character.

My guess is that he noticed himself misspelling "coverage," and that then one of two things happened.

1) he accidentally hit "send" instead of the back arrow key while trying to correct it or

2) he didn't correct it because a tiny, temporary mental malfunction prevented him from doing so.

I find both possibilities believable. But the second one seems slightly more likely, because the first would have been followed quickly by a correction.

And that worries me - what if we are watching the progress of dementia?

I don't find that possibility comical. I find it scary.

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