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David Frum Profile picture
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8 Dec, 4 tweets, 1 min read
And while we're on the subject, a short thread from last year on "Merry Christmas"
The three biggest language adjustments I had to make in the US after growing up in Toronto:

Happy Christmas => Merry Christmas

Chesterfield => couch

Bathroom => restroom
I could add "pop => soda" but many Americans also say pop
Somebody caught me out ( or "oot") the other day saying "handbag" for "purse" but I'm not sure that's a border thing.

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David Frum Profile picture
8 Dec
OK, on the subject, here's my understanding of the story of soda vs. pop ... 1/x
In the 18th c., scientists discovered how to carbonate water by using soda compounds. "Soda water" enters the language about then. For a generation, soda water remains an upper class drink. EG Byron in Don Juan, 1818.
Then, led by a Swiss genius named Schweppes, the process of making fizzy water is industrialized. The price comes down. Soda goes mass market ... and then anonymous people begin adding syrups and flavors. The new product obviously is different from your grandpa's "soda."
Read 5 tweets
David Frum Profile picture
5 Dec
It cant be that he's going to fly to Georgia to enflame civil war within the state Republican party ...
Yet it makes a perverse psychological sense. Trump can't acknowledge that Biden soundly defeated him. Ergo, Trump must insist he didn't lose. Ergo, Trump must persuade himself he was betrayed from within. Ergo, anti-Trump traitors must be punished ...
Also - although Trump would not articulate it this way, not even to himself - it would humiliate him if both Loeffler and Perdue win their Georgia races after he lost his. It's better for his ego if they both lose. So perhaps he's come to apply that extra bit of oomph to ensure
Read 6 tweets
David Frum Profile picture
3 Dec
To underscore the point

Obama averaged 52.0 % in two presidential elections

Trump averaged 46.5 % in two presidential elections
And yet the Trump people think there's something difficult to explain about Trump losing swing states
These tweets triggered an electoral college discussion in the comments below. FWIW, here are my own electoral college thoughts ...
Read 21 tweets
David Frum Profile picture
30 Nov
A third in honor of the 41st
Retreading these, I realize I omitted to give due praise to another HW Bush achievement: successful management of the collapse of the savings and loan industry
I meant “rereading” but typo “retreading” also works!
Read 4 tweets
David Frum Profile picture
28 Nov
If this story is true, it's funny to imagine the thoughts and feelings of Pence and Pompeo as O'Brien pledged their support for a Trump 2024 run. "Oh sure, how great, with you every step of the way as you crush all my plans ... " thedailybeast.com/trumps-already…
The Biden coalition stretches from ex-Romney voters to ex-Sanders voters. It's huge, therefore potentially unstable. One bond can hold the mass together: Donald Trump insisting that everybody keep thinking about HIM for the next 4 years. What a gift to Biden!
In 2016 I suggested a comparison of Trump to William Jennings Bryan. Take a look, it stands up. And now there's maybe one more way they may resemble each other: Bryan kept tempting Democrats to renominate him again and again - and to lose again and again. wsj.com/articles/the-t…
Read 4 tweets
David Frum Profile picture
25 Nov
The Nixon pardon did not specify crimes. A Trump self-pardon may be vague too. But now imagine how that reads: "I, Donald John Trump, do pardon myself for any and all crimes I may have committed against the United States, during my presidency and before my presidency."
Whether or not acceptance of a pardon is a technical acceptance of guilt, the act of signing such a statement forms one hell of a self accusation!
Given the uncertainty of the validity of the act, its uselessness versus New York State and other sovereigns, and its excruciatingly self-accusing language - I seriously wonder whether Trump will do it. He may prefer to rely on terrorizing the Biden DOJ to leave him alone-or else
Read 4 tweets

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