Crime

The grammar of Donald Trump tweeting 'Thanks, Donald!'

Eugene Volokh |The Volokh Conspiracy | 12.29.2016 3:29 PM

The U.S. Consumer Confidence Index for December surged nearly four points to 113.7, THE HIGHEST LEVEL IN MORE THAN 15 YEARS! Thanks Donald!

- Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 28, 2016

Prof. Ben Zimmer (Language Log) reports that it's vocative self-address, and he offers some historical antecedents. Don't confuse it with illeism, of course.

Eugene Volokh is the Gary T. Schwartz Distinguished Professor of Law at UCLA and a Visiting Fellow (Senior Fellow starting May 2024) at the Hoover Institution (Stanford). Naturally, his posts here (like the opinions of the other bloggers) are his own, and not endorsed by any educational institution.

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