Donald Trump tweeted out on Tuesday morning: “After having written many best selling books, and somewhat priding myself on my ability to write, it should be noted that the Fake News constantly likes to pour over my tweets looking for a mistake. I capitalize certain words only for emphasis, not b/c they should be capitalized.” It wasn’t the most edifying of moments and he quickly corrected himself, deleting the original and correcting “pour” to “pore”. Recommended Trump boasts about writing many books but ghostwriter says otherwise This moment of exquisite irony was not lost on the novelist JK Rowling: “hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha someone told him how to spell ‘pore’ hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha.” It’s good fun to see one the world’s most famous novelists troll Trump on his spelling in real time, but there’s a far more interesting dimension to this clash of personalities – Rowling’s books show both why Trump won and why Hillary Clinton lost in the 2016 US presidential election. Voldemort, from Rowling’s series of Harry Potter novels, is a modernised version of John Milton’s Satan – obsessed with power for its own sake. “To be weak is miserable”, said Satan, while in Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone, Voldemort said: “There is no good and evil, there is only power and those too weak to seek it.” Evil has its social expression in an obsession with blood lines, ancestry and magic as an inherited attribute. See Draco Malfoy’s quip: “You’ll soon find out some wizarding families are much better than others, Potter.” And on wizards from non-magical backgrounds: “They’re just not the same, they’ve never been brought up to know our ways.” The parallels between Trump and Voldemort are obvious, both in leadership style and ideas. The America first agenda is brazen “blood and soil” nationalism. Voldemort exercises power through personal patronage and personal loyalty using his small coterie of Death Eater followers; Trump operates like a gangster boss, running on a sixth sense instinct about who to trust and is obsessed with familial loyalty. Trump South Carolina rally Show all 5 1 /5 Trump South Carolina rally Trump South Carolina rally AP Trump South Carolina rally AP Trump South Carolina rally AP Trump South Carolina rally Getty Images Trump South Carolina rally Getty Images In contrast with the creative nihilism of Voldemort’s vision of wizarding life, the “good side” sees magic as a universally accessible force that everyone can tap into. Dumbledore: “It is our choices, Harry, that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities.” And that mystic of individual liberation and action is complemented by an inclusive attitude towards the magical world’s minority groups. Hermione starts a Society for the Protection of Elfish Welfare at school to champion rights for House Elves, who are treated as slaves by wizarding families; Remus Lupin, a werewolf, is treated with compassion by Dumbledore, but is shunned in general. But it’s also profoundly problematic in lots of ways. Muggles are routinely patronised as somehow less gifted, or less special, not because they are smaller, or less interesting individuals, but because they are Muggles tout court – the Dursley family, who make up almost all the cast of Muggle characters, are basically a series of “little England” suburban tropes. But it seems to me that it is the Muggles who are never included in any of the liberation rhetoric – the vast resources of the magical world are never shared for the benefit of Muggles generally. Muggles are left with only their primitivity for comfort, their ignorant “little” lives, with only scientific innovation, derided as a crude imitation of magical powers. For, in the magical world, there is no economic growth and very little economic inequality – the wizarding family we spent most time with, the Weasleys, are sort of down-at-heel nouveaux pauvres aristocrats. There is very little real injustice between wizards and so, the notion of inequality is introduced through exclusion on the basis of identity – it is the fact of elf identity or werewolf identity that is worth fighting for. Hillary staked her campaign on a “rainbow coalition”’ of minority groups in contrast to the “basket of deplorables” who were “racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamophobic, you name it.” Now she’s absolutely right about that; but it never seemed to amount to a broader vision that appealed to all of America’s dispossessed, particularly the “muggle” blue-collar workers who voted en masse for Barack Obama in 2008 and 2012, only to turn to Trump in 2016. Rowling basically builds her story around a conflict between two forms of identity politics – a bad side, which cleaves to notions not so very different from Trumpian ideas of nationhood and the other, a celebration of cosmopolitanism that makes its appeal to some of the world’s dispossessed at the expense of others. But in modern America, truth seems to be much so stranger than fiction: Hillary was no Harry and Trump, well, he won…<doc-sep>J.K. Rowling just gave President Donald Trump some writing advice. Trump defended his tweeting style on Twitter Tuesday afternoon and admitted that he took pride in his writing ability. However, in the same sentence which called out the “Fake News” for searching for typos— he made a typo. “After having written many best selling books, and somewhat priding myself on my ability to write, it should be noted that the Fake News constantly likes to pour over my tweets looking for a mistake. I capitalize certain words only for emphasis, not b/c they should be capitalized!” Trump tweeted. Instead of “pore over,” which means to study carefully, Trump wrote “pour over.” Twitter An hour later, Trump deleted the tweet, and tweeted out the same message with the correct word. Rowling apparently found the original tweet hilarious, repeatedly typing “haha” in three successive replies. In one, the Harry Potter author sarcastically called him the “Gratest Writer on earth.” And she also gave Trump the correct spelling of the word. Rowling wasn’t the only one to correct the president. Many other Twitter users were quick to highlight the incorrect usage of “pour.” Merriam-Webster Dictionary’s Twitter account, which has been increasingly used to jab at Trump and his administration, also felt the need to point out the grammatical difference. After Trump’s correction, Rowling replied again, saying that someone appeared to tell the president how to spell ‘pore.’ Get The Brief. Sign up to receive the top stories you need to know right now. Please enter a valid email address. * The request timed out and you did not successfully sign up. Please attempt to sign up again. Sign Up Now An unexpected error has occurred with your sign up. Please try again later. Check the box if you do not wish to receive promotional offers via email from TIME. You can unsubscribe at any time. By signing up you are agreeing to our Terms of Service and Privacy Policy . This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply. Thank you! For your security, we've sent a confirmation email to the address you entered. Click the link to confirm your subscription and begin receiving our newsletters. If you don't get the confirmation within 10 minutes, please check your spam folder. Contact us at letters@time.com.<doc-sep>Regardless of your views on President Trump, we should all be able to agree that the man is not a great writer. His speaking and reading skills are also debatable. But let's stick to the writing bit today. Trump's grasp on grammar is so bad, we published a list just this week compiling the highlights from his presidential typos. Then, on Tuesday, Trump tweeted this: Image: Donald Trump/Twitter JK Rowling, the internet's favorite Trump critic, who also happens to be a great writer, summed it up pretty nicely. While the phrasing of this tweet itself could use some editing, Trump also made a pretty glaring error. He claimed the media likes to "pour over" his tweets looking for a mistake. The correct use would be "pore over." It's a pretty understandable mistake, considering "pour over" is a common phrase, like pour-over coffee. However, the definition of "pour" is to "cause to flow in a stream," or "to supply or produce freely," according to Merriam-Webster. Trump meant to write that members of the media "pore" over his tweets, which means "to read or study attentively — usually used with over," according to the Merriam-Webster definition. While it's an understandable mistake, it's not a great one to make when you're boasting about how you're a great writer. UPDATE: July 3, 2018, 4:34 p.m. PDT Trump has since deleted the tweet to correct the error. The internet had plenty of other reactions, too. The flag is flying at half staff at WH after deaths of reporters and Trump is tweeting about "fake news." https://t.co/2OGFma8aUK — Jim Acosta (@Acosta) July 3, 2018 July 3, 1776: "I am well aware of the Toil and Blood and Treasure, that it will cost Us to maintain this Declaration, and support and defend these States.—Yet through all the Gloom I can see the Rays of ravishing Light and Glory." - John Adams July 3, 2018: https://t.co/BlKWW2kqEO — Dave Itzkoff (@ditzkoff) July 3, 2018 Trust us, we don't love to PORE over your tweets looking for a mistake. https://t.co/BoamPvVjyq — New York Daily News (@NYDailyNews) July 3, 2018 You meant "poor." (Let's see if he takes the bait.) https://t.co/b0LUjkqkIh — Rick Wilson (@TheRickWilson) July 3, 2018 Having a very low IQ, Trump doesn’t understand that when a ghost writer writes your book, as was done with “The Art Of the Deal,” it means you didn’t write it yourself. There is no evidence that Trump, who doesn’t read anything without big pictures, can write. https://t.co/r6SyLR8NCP — John Aravosis (@aravosis) July 3, 2018 Of course, it's very possible that Trump didn't write this tweet at all. He's got a ghostwriter for that, too. Maybe just don't tweet and we wouldn't have this issue, Trump.<doc-sep>Donald Trump has yet again given the world a reason to laugh through his tweet when he made a mistake while tweeting about his error-free writing skills. If that wasn't enough noted writer JK Rowling's tweet in response to Trump made it another talking point on Twitter. Rowling, known for her bestselling Harry Potter novels couldn’t control her laughter over Trump's tweet as she replied with a continuous “hahaha” in her tweet. Donald Trump originally tweeted, "After having written many bestselling books, and somewhat priding myself on my ability to write, it should be noted that the Fake News constantly likes to pour over my tweets looking for a mistake. I capitalise certain words only for emphasis, not b/c they should be capitalised!" Trump made the mistake of typing “pour over” instead of “pore over” which means to carefully observe something. In a sequence of following tweets, Rowling tweeted “pour” succeeded by many more “hahaha” suggesting that Mr Trump may have used Ghostwriters (meaning: Writers who write for others ) for his books. 'written' and his ghost writer's talked to the press hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha — J.K. Rowling (@jk_rowling) July 3, 2018 Rowling also tweeted , "*wipes eyes, tries to control breathing* Seriously, @realDonaldTrump is the Gratest Writer on earth." After an hour of the original tweet, Trump deleted the original one and tweeted the error-free version which was again mocked by Rowling as she said, "someone told him how to spell 'pore’". After having written many best selling books, and somewhat priding myself on my ability to write, it should be noted that the Fake News constantly likes to pore over my tweets looking for a mistake. I capitalize certain words only for emphasis, not b/c they should be capitalized! — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 3, 2018 Furthermore, Merriam-Webster Dictionary’s Twitter account also joined in the fun as it tweeted , “'pore over': "to read or study very carefully" ; 'pour over': "to make expensive coffee" ; 'comb over': "to comb hair from the side of the head to cover the bald spot".”<doc-sep>
US President Donald Trump tweeted about his writing prowess on Tuesday. But Trump made an error in his boast, using the word "pour" instead of "pore." The mistake was seized upon by the "Harry Potter" author J.K. Rowling and others on Twitter, including the account of the dictionary Merriam-Webster. Trump deleted his original tweet, replacing it with one containing the correct use of the word "pour." J.K. Rowling is laughing at US President Donald Trump on Twitter after he misspelled a word in a tweet boasting about his writing prowess. Trump said: "After having written many best selling books, and somewhat priding myself on my ability to write, it should be noted that the Fake News constantly likes to pour over my tweets looking for a mistake. I capitalize certain words only for emphasis, not b/c they should be capitalized!" Though he used the phrase "pour over," the grammatically correct version would have been "pore over." The president swiftly deleted the tweet and reposted it with the correct word in place. Rowling, the "Harry Potter" author who has been a vehement critic of Trump, could not resist the urge to point and laugh at the mistake in a series of tweets before and after the president's correction. Twitter While many fans praised Rowling's reaction, some were critical. Rowling replied to one Twitter user who threatened burning or discarding the person's "Harry Potter" books, saying that reading the books should make her political leanings obvious. The official Twitter account for the dictionary Merriam-Webster also made light of Trump's error. It provided definitions for "pore over" and "pour over" and went one step further, defining "comb over" — a not-so-subtle reference to the president's signature hairstyle. The Trump biographer Tim O'Brien, who wrote "Trump Nation," also weighed in on Trump's tweet, disputing the claim that Trump had written many best-sellers. "President Trump didn't write any of his books," O'Brien tweeted on Tuesday. "Ghostwriters on all of them."