OK, I’m going to put this whole ‘horrible letter’ business to rest right now. What others have said is true, and (with the exception of Andy Jackson) none have supported their ‘horrible letter’ assertion with any examples of evidence from the actual letter of such judgment. I grade college essays and standardized test writing submissions (such as state assessments and the ACT) for a living. It is my job to assess the writing of others, so I feel fairly confident that I am highly qualified to make a legitimate judgement call on this, although I do not profess to be an expert grammarian. (And no disrespect intended to those who have passed judgement on the letter because of their college journalism class or because they, too, are writers.)
To the person who stated the verb tense was wrong in the first sentence: On the contrary, Trump’s context is that she has written nasty articles about him, and that action (writing articles) is an ongoing action. The introductory dependent clause does not change that. If he had used the ‘had written’ verb form, it would have been an incorrect implication that the action was something that no longer occurred.
Trump’s opening paragraph is weakly developed, lacking a clear topic sentence, but clearly the intent is to slam Collins, which he effectively does in his second sentence. His third sentence is poorly constructed, particularly the parenthetical which is really adding nothing to the sentence (except tooting his own horn). His closing sentence in paragraph one is his thesis, which is clear and concise.
In paragraph two, his opening sentence could be more succinct, particularly in the introductory clause. He gets a bit overzealous with comma usage in the next two sentences, but all are appropriately placed. Using the word ‘who’ rather than the word ‘that’ when referring to the ‘large segment’ is a bit perplexing, since who is used for persons and that is used for objects. What to do when an object is used to describe a group of persons? (I think even the wisest grammarian would struggle with that one. I’m sure there’s a rule, but I don’t have time to go look it up.) The dash usage in the final sentence is not problematic. Actually, ellipses are not allowed in academic writing except to indicate edits in citations, so the person who stated an ellipsis should have been used here was incorrect.
Moving on, I do not believe the quotations are required in the first sentence of the third paragraph. Capitalizing the names of the documents might have been more effective. Adding the adjective ‘official’ before Birth Certificate would have added more clarity. His punctuation in the opening sentence is flawed in several places. He begins his next two sentences with effective transitional phrases, demonstrating variety in sentence structure (an advanced writing quality). He then uses the ‘as far as’ again, which stylistically could be considered overused, but this is the least of his worries in this sentence, which is poorly constructed. The use of ‘thereto’ indicates his familiarity with legal documents. It is not a commonly used word, but is used often in the legal profession, particularly in real estate contracts. (I used to work in a commercial real estate office, and typed many contracts with sentences ending in ‘thereto’ all the time.) The last sentence in this paragraph is poorly punctuated, but the meaning is clear.
His next two paragraphs lack focus and unity. Combining those two paragraphs into one would have been more effective, using his topic sentence in the fifth paragraph (about the press) and moving the sentence about the derogatory (a term he used twice in one sentence, which is a poor style choice) nature of the word ‘birther’ to be the topic sentence for perhaps the second or third paragraphs. He uses a fairly sophisticated word (aspirant) in this paragraph, indicating specific word choice. I do not believe the quotation marks around “scam” are required.
The closing sentence is a comma splice and should be two sentences or should have a semicolon after Gail instead of the comma.
In terms of content and message, overall I believe he was effective in staying on point, although structurally there were areas that could use some fine tuning. He did support many of his statements with strong assertions, but to be more effective in his content, some reference to his sources should have also been included.
So, there you have it. After reviewing it carefully, I wouldn’t call it ‘horrible’(believe me, I have seen ‘horrible!’), but it was also not as effective as it could have been. It indicates to me that he spent very little time on it and probably just wrote it like many of us do when composing an ‘angry email’ response.
Now, back to my grading...
Nevertheless, I found Trumps letter direct and forceful. It's a joy to see him take on the MSM. You are probably right, he probably spent little time writing it.
P.S. please don't review my post -- I am not a professional writer :)
To the person who stated the verb tense was wrong in the first sentence: On the contrary, Trump’s context is that she has written nasty articles about him, and that action (writing articles) is an ongoing action. The introductory dependent clause does not change that. If he had used the ‘had written’ verb form, it would have been an incorrect implication that the action was something that no longer occurred.
I am the one who raised this point, and it is something of a pedantic nicety, but since you are one of those charged with grading ACTs I am going to challenge you on this one. The introductory dependent clause is relevant, because the correct verb tense of the main clause is determined by the time/action relationship to the action in the dependent clause, i.e. the action is before. Since it is before some past tense action, the thing in the main clause must be pluperfect. Now to cover your point about continuity of action it should correctly have read "she had been writing nasty..." But unless you take years of classical Latin you probably do not learn the niceties of verb tenses, moods and voices because they are not generally taught as part of English grammar.
Trump’s opening paragraph is weakly developed, lacking a clear topic sentence, but clearly the intent is to slam Collins, which he effectively does in his second sentence.
Wrong. The clear topic sentence is the assertion that Gail Collins had been writing nasty and derogatory articles about Trump. After disarming the reader by damning her with faint praise in the second sentence (litotes), he then calls her a journalistic hack of no literary merit in the third.
His third sentence is poorly constructed, particularly the parenthetical which is really adding nothing to the sentence (except tooting his own horn). His closing sentence in paragraph one is his thesis, which is clear and concise.
No that is not his thesis. His thesis is that she his a journalistic hack who has written nasty things about him. And, she cannot even get her facts right.
In paragraph two, his opening sentence could be more succinct, particularly in the introductory clause.
Again, you completely miss the point. Having called her a journalistic hack in the first paragraph, he then goes on to state, here, that the purpose of this letter is to respond to something she has written elsewhere regarding the "birther" issue. And he refers to that "off stage" action in a manner that we know it happened and have the essential elements of it without having to go and look up said nasty article. It is quite nicely done, actually.
He gets a bit overzealous with comma usage in the next two sentences, but all are appropriately placed.
Go read "Eats, Shoots, and Leaves" and get back to us on this one.
Using the word ‘who’ rather than the word ‘that’ when referring to the ‘large segment’ is a bit perplexing, since who is used for persons and that is used for objects. What to do when an object is used to describe a group of persons? (I think even the wisest grammarian would struggle with that one. I’m sure there’s a rule, but I don’t have time to go look it up.)
Nope, a pedant would struggle with the ambiguity of the rule, but a wise person would suggest that it could go either way and leave it as a matter of individual preference. Precisely grammatical would be "a large segment which believes," but Trump in fact is simply reflecting his personal cognitive psychology, his cognition that the the collective "segment" is indeed not a loony left-wing nutcase communist type of collective, but rather a group of individual human beings who have in common a certain view that Collins disdains. His choice "who believe" reflects that psychological perspective, denoting them has humans who have individual beliefs, and have one particular one which they share.
...Moving on, I do not believe the quotations are required in the first sentence of the third paragraph. Capitalizing the names of the documents might have been more effective. Adding the adjective ‘official’ before Birth Certificate would have added more clarity.
One adds quotes around a noun phrase to emphasize that you are giving it a special technical meaning in this writing, distinguishing it, technically, from the other noun phrase that was placed in quotations.
His punctuation in the opening sentence is flawed in several places.
He does not use any except for a hyphen to set off the ellipses, which is not formally correct, but a standard in colloquial writing. Everyone knows what he is talking about.
..,He then uses the ‘as far as’ again, which stylistically could be considered overused...
Yeah. Ok. Touche. You got him, got him real good for once.
Except that you did not. The quips about "birthers" in that Collins article, to which he is apparently responding, is another off-stage fisticuffs about which we are now clued in so that here, center stage, we know to which joint he is applying the slash of his saber.
... but this is the least of his worries in this sentence, which is poorly constructed.
So here we get to the heart of the matter, the entire thesis that we are trying to debate here, but you merely note it and pass it by. You state that the sentence is poorly constructed. How so? The intent is quite clear. There is no fault in construction, no inability to follow the flow of Trump's logic.
Could one do better. Well,let's try "Among the many explanations for the newspaper advertisements announcing 0's birth, one is that his grandparents wanted to ensure he would receive all the benefits of US citizenship." Something like this is more formal, using just one main and one dependent clause. So is it an improvement?
Well, when Trump states "as for the two notices" he is again pointing to the off-stage action and telling us about something else that appeared in that Collins article, to which he is apparently responding. Our "improved and less clumsy" sentence does not point to and sufficiently describe that off-stage activity, so that we know into which eye-socket the rapier is being thrust.
The use of ‘thereto’ indicates his familiarity with legal documents. It is not a commonly used word, but is used often in the legal profession, particularly in real estate contracts. (I used to work in a commercial real estate office, and typed many contracts with sentences ending in ‘thereto’ all the time.)
Oh, my God! Or, oh my God! I am not a lawyer. I never worked in a law office. I am fully familiar with the word "thereto" and have frequently used it.
The last sentence in this paragraph is poorly punctuated, but the meaning is clear.
I don't think so.....
Let us try to build this sentence. Start with "Everybody wanted to be a United State citizen." Then we add a parenthetical "Everybody, after all, wanted to be a United State citizen." Its effect is a rhetorical "come on you political hack, everyone knows this! He then adds to it another parenthetical, "especially then" for further rhetorical emphasis, limiting his somewhat hyperbolic claim that everybody wanted to be a US citizen to a specific point in time, back then before we bankrupted the US and undermined its Constitution.
His next two paragraphs lack focus and unity. Combining those two paragraphs into one would have been more effective, using his topic sentence in the fifth paragraph (about the press) and moving the sentence about the derogatory (a term he used twice in one sentence, which is a poor style choice) nature of the word ‘birther’ to be the topic sentence for perhaps the second or third paragraphs. He uses a fairly sophisticated word (aspirant) in this paragraph, indicating specific word choice.
The unity of the 4th paragraph is just fine. Journalist hack Collins is singular in her attacks on birthers because they question her candidate, and no one else with this same problem would have been allowed to stand for election.
The 5th paragraph make a separate point about the more generalized delusion of the press, they are so in bed with 0 that they have sacrifice their Pulitzers to the cause.
I do not believe the quotation marks around “scam” are required.
Oh, Ok.
The closing sentence is a comma splice and should be two sentences or should have a semicolon after Gail instead of the comma.
Yep. You got Trump dead to rights here. His head-shot at Gail for closing her eyes to the constitutional peril, barely singes a loose hair because a comma should have been a semicolon or a period. Maybe Gail should write this in response to Trump. It would be a very convincing repartee. I don't need to open my eyes. Trump wrote a colloquial sentence, O Come on Gail, and so we can ignore his argument. I hope she tries it. I am sure it will swing a lot of public sympathy her way. I mean after all. Why should the journalistic hack have to stoop to defend our Constitution before the charges of someone who did not put the period after Gail.
In terms of content and message, overall I believe he was effective in staying on point, although structurally there were areas that could use some fine tuning.
He stayed exactly and unwaveringly on point, the point that his answering some hack journalist's derogatory article more concerned to criticize his efforts to get to the bottom of whether the uncertainty surrounding Obama's birth constitutes a constitutional crisis than she is about the peril that the crisis poses to the nation.
He did support many of his statements with strong assertions, but to be more effective in his content, some reference to his sources should have also been included.
Oh man, I hope he takes your advice. I really wanted the ten page essay replete with footnotes, references and additional explanatory detail. His meaning is far too transparent and I can hardly spend an evening on his letter trying to tease out his deeper essential meaning.
So, there you have it. After reviewing it carefully, I wouldn’t call it ‘horrible’(believe me, I have seen ‘horrible!’), but it was also not as effective as it could have been. It indicates to me that he spent very little time on it and probably just wrote it like many of us do when composing an ‘angry email’ response.
The fact that it is exactly on point, logically well structured and with at best a few extraneous words shows that he thought hard about it. This was not just dashed off.
So, having worked through all of that, where are we. First, I had hoped to learn something from our grammarians and composition experts, but did not, except that our poor kids are in the hands of folks who have no appreciation for the subtlety of language and believe that they have grammatical quibbles where they don't.
More especially, I am more concerned that a misguided school marmish approach to writing (not this analysis in particular but rather the tenor of the general line of criticism on this thread) taught us far more about the state of American education, and what it obsesses about, treating American educators as the collectivists they have turned themselve into, than it did about Donald Trump.