Wednesday, March 23, 2011

The Beauty of Trump

Mr. Trump has announced his intention to be a candidate for President of the United States. Trump has identified one of the factors that make him an appealing (qualified?) candidate in his statement "Part of the beauty of me is that I am very rich," explaining that he is willing to spend $600 million of his own money on a political campaign.

We aren't interested in assessing Mr. Trump's fitness for the office, or whether being rich makes one a qualified Presidential candidate. We also do not intend to debate whether or not Mr. Trump's wealth does in fact make him beautiful (isn't everyone beautiful wealthy?), or whether or not he is beautiful (if he is wealthy, then he must be beautiful).

Instead we would like to refer Mr. Trump to the grammatical idiom that a subject of a sentence cannot be part of a prepositional phrase. He might consider re-phrasing his statement in any of the following ways:
"I am very rich, and my wealth makes me beautiful." OR
"Part of me is beautiful, but all of me is rich." OR
"I am very rich and I am very beautiful." OR
"I consider it the highest form of patriotism to honor my duties as a citizen by serving my country in any capacity, and I proudly offer myself as a candidate for President of this great nation." OR
"Since I am so rich, I am entitled to declare myself to be beautiful."

Good luck Mr. Trump, whichever part of you is beautiful.