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Dictionary.com's Tweet About How Trump Spelled "Collusion" Throws All The Shade

by Angela Chen
Alex Wong/Getty Images News/Getty Images

When the supreme authority of words calls you out, some would argue it's time to proofread what you put on social media. On Sunday, Dictionary.com trolled President Trump for misspelling "collusion" in a tweet that demanded the Russian probe be over. And that wasn't the first time the site's spoken up about errors in the president's tweets.

The particular tweet Dictionary.com was referring to was just one in a series that harangued the Justice Department. The president blasted special counsel Robert Mueller's investigation into whether he had worked with Russia during his campaign and took his latest shot at Hillary Clinton, Democrats, and Obama. Trump and the Kremlin have denied collusion allegations.

"It is more important than ever before to come together as Americans. We cannot allow those seeking to sow confusion, discord, and rancor to be successful," Trump said in a statement from the White House back in February after 13 Russians were indicted. "It's time we stop the outlandish partisan attacks, wild and false allegations, and far-fetched theories, which only serve to further the agendas of bad actors, like Russia, and do nothing to protect the principles of our institutions. We must unite as Americans to protect the integrity of our democracy and our elections."

In a tweet on Sunday, the president said no “Collussion” had been found.

And that's when Dictionary.com's Twitter account spoke up, saying it wasn't able to find "collussion" either.

The whirl of angry tweets from Trump comes after his suggestion that an FBI informant was planted in his campaign. Without presenting any evidence, the president has accused the FBI of illegally spying on his 2016 campaign for political purposes, according to the New York Times.

This "Collusion" gaffe sits back-to-back with another one just the day before, when the president misspelled his wife's name — a mistake that earned him a roast on Twitter. In a tweet welcoming her back to the White House post-kidney surgery at the Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, Trump called his wife "Melanie" instead of "Melania."

“Great to have our incredible First Lady back home in the White House. Melanie is feeling and doing really well,” Trump had tweeted.

Someone must have alerted the president shortly after, because that tweet was quickly scrubbed and replaced with the exact same message. But this time, the first lady's name was spelled correctly.

In fact, every time the president misspells or misuses a word, Dictionary.com sees a spike in its search traffic for the "exact configuration" of the word he used in his tweet, according to the Washington Post. Dictionary.com keeps a casual record of what they call "presidential word mangling," and the list documents some of his most popular spelling mistakes. These range from being "honered to serve you, the great American People, as your 45th President of the United States" to asserting "we will heel, & be stronger than ever before" to the now-infamous "covfefe" (the meaning still being a mystery).

There was also the time that the president tried to insult Alex Baldwin, whose "dieing mediocre career was saved by his terrible impersonation of me on SNL, now says playing me was agony. Alex, it was agony for those who were forced to watch. Bring back Darrell Hammond, funnier and a far greater talent!"

As to why the dictionary site's search data is seeing this spike in searches, Dictionary.com ascribes it to people trying to spellcheck the president and make sure their "gut reaction" for how the word is properly spelled is confirmed.

And hey, maybe the president did take note of Dictionary.com's public call out. Just four hours later, he correctly spelled "Collusion" in another tweet. While it's spelled right, it's still not grammatically correct, but lessons on random capitalization will have to wait for another day.