DU grammar, syntax, and punctuation experts please help - Trump's letter to Sen. Schumer

[underpants]

LBN thread here

Okay so someone in the White House wrote a letter from Trump to Sen. Schumer.

I'm in no way an expert so I'm asking if my reading of this is really as bad as I think it is.
Aside from the attacks I mean.



The letter is here
https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/6824332-Trump-letter-to-Schumer.html

[Bernardo de La Paz]

1. X "team and me". Spell "alterative" at end. Needlessly lengthy sentences. . . . nt

[tblue37]

5. "By my team and me" is correct. "By" is a preposition, so it takes the object case of the pronoun. n

[Bernardo de La Paz]

6. Thanks. I missed "by". I learned to test by eliminating half the and: so "by me". You are correct.nt

[madaboutharry]

2. Trump is a pathetic and stupid man.

This is a ridiculous letter. I am surprised he didn’t also write to Schumer: “Your mother wears army boots!”

I am so sick of this asshole!

[jls4561]

3. OMG - does no on at the WH have a button that says "check spelling and grammar"?

What is really needed to check WH documents is a "this bull bleep makes normal people gag!" button. If I were a coder, I would develop one.

Sorry, I thought this was another amusing post to make fun of tRump's ignorance. However, when I read the letter to Senator Schumer, I lost my sense of humor.

It's a wonder the White House stationary didn't burst into flames going though the printer.

[unblock]

4. why are we counting paragraphs as we go?

[underpants]

11. #3 is the one that got me

The first two sentences almost look like they are written backwards. The last sentence has three commas in it.

[unblock]

14. He also "really likes" quotation marks.

[underpants]

17. He needs a "cat" in his "lap"

[Igel]

19. The first two sentences are simply not passive.

They're statements. I think I'd have made them passive for reasons of focus and information structure, but this isn't wrong. In fact, "avoid passives" fromStrunk & White leads you precisely here.

Chicago Style Manual commas they're not--not the latest revision, at least. The comma usage is old fashioned and I don't even know if it's included in the most recent edition. (I've been au courant with the Style Manual since the '80s, but style keeps shifting). As I a kid I read enough old literature that my punctuation was rather baroque--the Constitution's punctuation is more opaque, but mine was easily Dickensian. The word for this is not "open" or "mixed" comma usage; the word for it is "close", but each of those covers a range of style choices. At the risk of a pun, it's not stylish style.

Edit using enough in-house styles you learn to be flexible and see how comma usage coheres. His is simply "out dated," which means it's not in keeping with what others say is currently proper. I'd argue that often "proper" is shifted just to see who's paying attention and keeping up with the self-styled mavens dictate, largely for the purpose of sniffing, turning up the nose, and saying, "How antiquated."

I'd fix a verb form or two that I find infelicitous and arguably too colloquial as well as one easy to overlook typo.

If I were grading it as an English teacher (which gratefully, I'm not--neither grading this nor an English teacher) I'd fix the commas to keep judgmentalists from judgmentalizing. (sic)

Apart from that, the tone is petulant. I assume it must be part of some exchange. It's dripping all sorts of conversational implicatures--I could try to reconstruct what it's responding to for an exercise, but it's late.

[davekriss]

7. This is the Onion, right?

No President would possibly let such a letter go out under his signature.

[Progressive Jones]

9. This idiot Trump did. nt

[Progressive Jones]

10. This idiot Trump did. nt

[Igel]

20. Sadly, it seems that it did.

The thing is, if it is a parody it seems so appropriate that there's no reason to suspect it of being anything other than what it seems.

[Alex4Martinez]

8. The letter seems to be in his voice, I think he wrote/dictated it.

The poor grammar and punctuation and spelling suggest that he may have even typed it up.

"I never knew how bad a Senator you are..."

Just like the troll that he is.

[smirkymonkey]

12. He never really graduated from high school, did he?

If this is U of Penn level English, then they should be kicked out of the Ivy League. He is humiliating them with each passing day.

[TwilightZone]

13. Should have been "United States Senate" not Senator, for starters.

That letter is quite the train wreck.

"in the alterative"

Uh, alternative?

[underpants]

15. Wow I missed that, the Senator part

[bdamomma]

16. Always placing blame on others

and a fucking cowardly bully. It's always about him, isn't it?

[underpants]

18. While taking credit and punching down

Section #2

[cwydro]

21. So many incorrect use of commas that I wouldn't know where to begin.

It appears to have been written by a poorly educated person.

Oh, wait.

[jayschool2013]

22. Someone should re-write the whole thing

to eliminate passive voice, mechanical errors and

ALL THE CRAZY!!!

[MyOwnPeace]

23. Here's the re-write, without the mistakes and crazy!

Senator Charles E. Schumer
United States Senate
Washington, D.C. 20515

Dear Senator Schumer:


Thank you.


Sincerely Yours,

(scribble, scribble, scribble)

[jayschool2013]

24. Brilliant!