Why does Donald Trump speak in a monotone when he reads someone else’s words?
Mats Andersson, Professional Translator English into Swedish (1991-present)
Originally Answered: Why does Donald Trump talk monotone when he reads someone else’s words?
He gives every impression of being dyslectic, and this would explain a lot about him.
Firstly, it doesn’t mean that he can’t read—it means that he finds it difficult and probably almost physically painful.
So it explains why he gets his information from TV. I personally hate getting information from TV because it’s a lot slower than reading; for him, it’s way faster than reading.
It explains why his aides put his name in big letters on every page he is required to read: it is one of the few words that he can read by shape, like fluent readers do, instead of assembling the letters one by one until they make a word. That’s what he does when he reads from a prompt, of course; hence the monotone.
It explains why he tweets in the small hours. There is no one there to see how excruciatingly long it takes him.
It explains “covfefe”. He was trying to write “coverage”, but the letters wouldn’t cooperate. It also explains many other mistakes in his tweets; he has to rely on Autocorrect.
It explains his monumental insecurity, especially around people with degrees. He grew up before there was proper help available; in all likelihood, his tutors (and very likely also his father, who appears to have been a quite horrible person in his own right) told him that he was stupid and would never amount to anything. And now, he has spent all his life trying to hide that he is dyslectic, and in constant fear that he’d be found out. Can you imagine what that does to a person?
Can you imagine what it’s like to suddenly be the most scrutinised person on the planet?
I live in Sweden. Our King got found out, a long time ago, when he managed to misspell his own name on an official document. And he went public, saying that he was dyslectic and had had to work hard to overcome it, but writing was still a lot more difficult for him than reading. And that was the very moment when it became acceptable here—a lot more people came out, telling their own stories, and there was suddenly proper help to be had in schools.
Trump could do the same.
If he was capable of admitting a weakness. |
