President Donald Trump has a habit of firing off error-laden missives on Twitter and replacing them with corrected versions later. | Evan Vucci/AP Photo Pore or pour? Trump tweet corrects example of poor spelling.

President Donald Trump attacked the news media and defended his tweeting habit Tuesday in the most Trump way possible: with a typo-tainted tweet.

“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,” he wrote at 4:19 p.m. “I capitalize certain words only for emphasis, not b/c they should be capitalized!”


Nearly two hours later, he deleted the tweet and corrected his misuse of the word “pour” — which plenty of people, including whoever is running Merriam-Webster‘s Twitter account, had pointed out to him — in a new tweet that changed only that single word.

The word “pore” means "to read or study very carefully," while “pour” means “to cause a liquid to flow from a container.” Dictionary.com subsequently tweeted: “Pore and pour have taken over the top search spots on dictionary.com this evening. Do you know the difference? Hint ... Kermit would have to pour his favorite drink into his cup. #Spelling.”

Trump, who has a second phone just for Twitter, has a habit of firing off error-laden missives on Twitter and replacing them with corrected versions later. He also has 19 books credited to his name, all published between 1987 and 2015. Almost all of them had a ghostwriter.



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

Noticing Trump had confused “pore” and “pour,” “Harry Potter” author J.K. Rowling wrote “ha” 501 times in a series of tweets, adding, in one of them, “someone told him how to spell 'pore.'” In another tweet, she mocked the notion of him writing his own books.

“Star Wars” actor Mark Hamill added: “You misspelled 'ghostwritten'. Also, 'pore' #PitifulPridefulPOTUS.”

