By David K. Shipler
In a
rare moment of candor and accuracy, President Trump today used the word “incredible”
to describe his press secretary, Sarah Huckabee Sanders. Upon her announcement
that she will be leaving the post, Trump tweeted, “She is a very special person with extraordinary
talents, who has done an incredible job!”
The
entire White House press corps suddenly found itself in unfamiliar agreement
with a tweet from on high.
Reactions
to the unprecedented spasm of presidential honesty came swiftly from an array
of eighth-grade English teachers. “While the adjective ‘incredible’ has been
corrupted in slang to substitute for such superlatives as “amazing’ and ‘extraordinary,’”
said Mrs. Matthews of Chatham (NJ) Junior High School, “all of my students know
very well that it means, ‘not believable.’ Its root is credo, Latin for ‘I believe,’ and is made negative by the prefix ‘in.’”
For emphasis, she slapped her 15-inch ruler on her desk, her routine method of
keeping her students awake and attentive.
Trump
surely knows the proper definition of “incredible,” several other teachers
observed, because he went for a couple of years to Fordham, a Jesuit college where precise thinking and
respect for language are de rigueur, and then to an Ivy League school, the
University of Pennsylvania.
Jane
Doe, who covers the White House for the East
Overshoe Gazette summed up the feeling among her colleagues: “We just hope
his next press secretary is less incredible.”
In case you’re wondering, this is satire—although the
Trump tweet is real.
