On the short periods of Trumpian time
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On Friday, at a joint press conference with Romanian President Klaus Iohannis, Donald Trump begrudgingly took questions from Jon Karl of ABC News. Karl asked whether there are indeed recordings of Trump's conversations with former FBI director James Comey, as Trump once suggested on Twitter. Here is how he replied (emphasis mine):
KARL: And you seem to be hinting that there are recordings of those conversations.
TRUMP: I'm not hinting anything. I'll tell you about it over a very short period of time. Okay. Do you have a question here?
KARL: When will you tell us about the recordings?
TRUMP: Over a fairly short period of time.
Pres. Trump would “100%” be willing to say under oath that he didn’t ask Comey to let Flynn investigation "go"; didn't say “I need loyalty." pic.twitter.com/TayObtkChX
— ABC News Politics (@ABCPolitics) June 9, 2017
In his response, Trump used "over a very/fairly short period of time" to mean "soon." It's a peculiar choice of preposition — why over rather than in?
I was curious to see how Trump has used "a short period of time" as the object of a preposition in past statements. As it happens, since taking office, Trump has frequently had occasion to talk about "short periods of time." Checking transcripts available on The American Presidency Project and the White House website, as well as various interviews and other public appearances, I've found a whopping 37 examples of Trump using the phrase "short period of time" (or 39 if you count his response to Jon Karl).
In just a few cases, "a short period of time" appears without a preposition preceding it:
So I can say that it probably will change me somewhat. I've only been here a short period of time.
(Interview with ABC News, Jan. 25)
And that's only two weeks. Okay? It’s a very short period of time.
(Roundtable with County Sheriffs, Feb. 7)
My administration is — just a matter of weeks, literally, a short period of time — has brought record reductions to illegal immigration.
(North America's Building Trades Unions National Legislative Conference, Apr. 4)
The first example uses "a short period of time" as an adverbial phrase equivalent to "for a short period of time" (more on that in a bit). In the second example, "a very short period of time" is a predicate nominal, so no preposition is needed. The third one is a bit word-salad-y, but we can guess that Trump is claiming his administration has brought record reductions to illegal immigration in a short period of time.
Indeed, the most common preposition that Trump uses in conjunction with "a short period of time" is in (or occasionally within), and most of the time he is talking about past events. More specifically, he tends to boast about what he has accomplished since taking office.
I don’t think there's ever been a President elected who, in this short period of time, has done what we've done.
(Press conference, Feb. 16)
Let me list to you some of the things that we’ve done in just a short period of time.
(Press conference, Feb. 16)
Again, I say it — there has never been a presidency that’s done so much in such a short period of time.
(Press conference, Feb. 16)
And by the way, you've seen what we've accomplished in a very short period of time.
(Rally in Melbourne, Florida, Feb. 18)
And if you were at the meeting that I just attended where we took 12 “no’s” or semi-“no’s” — no “yeses” — and within a short period of time, everybody was very much on board, and a commitment to vote yes.
(Press conference with Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany, Mar. 17)
But I am very, very proud of what you’ve been able to do in a short period of time — just this little, short period of time, the optimism is so high.
(Listening session with the National Association of Manufacturers, Mar. 31)
In fact, even today I was very happy as I read this morning early that our trade deficit with others has gone down very considerably in the last short period of time.
(CEO Town Hall, Apr. 4)
Within a very short period of time, we were back rebuilding, and rebuild you did.
(North America's Building Trades Unions National Legislative Conference, Apr. 4)
We've created over 600,000 jobs already in a very short period of time, and it's going to really start catching on now, because some of the things that we've done are big league and they are catching on.
(Strategic and Policy CEO Discussion, Apr. 11)
Our companies are doing better – they just announced fantastic profits – all because of what’s happened in this rather short period of time.
(Weekly address, Apr. 28)
But in a short period of time I understood everything there was to know about health care.
(Interview with Time, May 11)
Border crossings — thank you to our General — are down more than 70 percent in just a short period of time — a total record, by the way, by a lot.
(Coast Guard Academy commencement address, May 17)
In just a short period of time, we’ve already added nearly one million new jobs, and approved historic increases in military spending.
(Faith and Freedom Coalition conference, June 8)
In most of these cases, the prepositional phrase appears in a clause where the verb is in the present perfect, suggesting Trump's frame of reference extends from his inauguration to the present time of his utterance. Only a few examples stray from this pattern. Trump uses the past progressive in "Within a very short period of time, we were back rebuilding" to refer to the distant past (9/11). And he uses the simple past in "But in a short period of time I understood everything there was to know about health care," because apparently the period in which he achieved comprehensive mastery of health care has already ended.
A few other times, in (or within) is used to herald an event in the near future — i.e., Trump is promising that the length of time from his utterance to the future event will be brief:
We'll be having some really good, really solid plans within a short period of time.
(Interview with ABC News, Jan. 25)
We're going to be meeting your wife in a very short period of time, and I look very much forward to that.
(Press conference with Prime Minister Abe of Japan, Feb. 10)
We will add more than 25 billion dollars for national defense in a short period of time, and we will ensure that our service members have the equipment, tools, training, and resources that they need and that they so richly deserve.
(Speech on USS Intrepid, May 4)
This is the construction we might have expected Trump to use when responding to Jon Karl about the purported Comey tapes: he will let us all know "in (or within) a short period of time" whether such recordings exist. But Trump didn't go that route, even though he has previously used in/within for promised future actions.
Another common preposition used by Trump is for:
And while I’ve been President, which is just for a very short period of time, I’ve learned tremendous things that you could only learn, frankly, if you were in a certain position, namely, President.
(Press conference with Prime Minister Abe of Japan, Feb. 10)
And he actually said he was a very low-level member of, I think, a committee for a short period of time.
(Press conference, Feb. 16)
But Paul Manafort, who’s a good man also, by the way — Paul Manafort was replaced long before the election took place. He was only there for a short period of time.
(Press conference, Feb. 16)
So when he came into our administration for a short period of time, he came in — he was already approved by the Obama Administration and he had years left on that approval.
(Interview with Fox News, Apr. 28)
And coming from a different world and only being a politician for a short period of time — how am I doing? Am I doing okay? I’m President. Hey, I’m President. Can you believe it? Right?
(Remarks after House passage of the American Health Care Act, May 4)
So Obamacare is dead. And don’t let them pin it on the Republicans, by the way. We’ve only been here for a short period of time, okay?
(Faith and Freedom Coalition conference, June 8)
This type of prepositional phrase is sometimes called a "durative adverbial": it carves out a temporal duration, which may extend to the present (e.g., his presidency) or may be well in the past (e.g., Manafort's involvement in the 2016 campaign).
Now let's turn to the preposition that Trump chose to use in his response to Karl: over. Like in and for, it can be used in a durative adverbial. Here are examples where over marks a duration in the past leading to the present (typically with verbs in the present perfect):
People are being shot left and right. Thousands of people over a period — over a short period of time.
(Interview with ABC News, Jan. 25)
Our debt has doubled over a short period of time.
(Budget meeting, Feb. 22)
We’ve made tremendous strides over the last short period of time.
(Signing of executive order on regulatory reform, Feb. 24)
And we've lost close to 70,000 factories over a relatively short period of time — 70,000.
(CEO Town Hall, Apr. 4)
I want to at this time recognize his incredible wife, Maureen, who I got to know very well over the last short period of time.
(Swearing-in of Justice Gorsuch to the Supreme Court, Apr. 10)
A lot of things have happened over the last short period of time.
(Press conference with Prime Minister Gentiloni of Italy, Apr. 20)
And I must tell you I am so proud as your president to have helped you along over the past short period of time.
(Liberty University commencement address, May 13)
And MS-13, likewise — a horrible, horrible, large group of gangs that have been let into our country over a fairly short period of time — are being decimated by the Border Patrol, by ICE, and by our incredible local police forces.
(Press conference with President Santos of Colombia, May 18)
Both the United States and Colombia have strong law enforcement and security relationship. We’ve had it — and especially over the last fairly short period of time.
(Press conference with President Santos of Colombia, May 18)
Note that when Trump uses this phrasing, he sometimes elaborates it into "over the last (or past) short period of time," indicating that the time period in question began very recently. He does something similar when using over in the context of future actions:
And big announcements are going to be made over the next short period of time.
(Press conference with Prime Minister Abe of Japan, Feb. 10)
And we’ll be having some very big news over the next short period of time.
(Press conference with Prime Minister Abe of Japan, Feb. 10)
Well, we're going to be working on that very closely over the next very short period of time.
(Roundtable with Women Entrepreneurs, Feb. 13)
So it seems that Trump developed the stylistic tic of saying "over the last/past short period of time," and then extended that into "over the next short period of time" for promises that he says will be fulfilled soon — really, really soon. But when he was answering Jon Karl's question, he left out the next part, instead opting for "over a very/fairly short period of time." Phrased that way, it sounds like Trump will pick some extremely brief window of time — say, between 1 and 1:03 p.m. on Wednesday — to make his big reveal. Given Trump's seat-of-the-pants mode of governing, that doesn't seem so odd after all.
Graeme said,
June 10, 2017 @ 6:15 am
He intends "Soon, but in my own good time."
But it comes out as "Dunno. Making it up as I go. "
bratschegirl said,
June 10, 2017 @ 6:31 am
It only takes a very short period of time to say "There aren't any."
Matt Juge said,
June 10, 2017 @ 10:36 am
The statements made to Abe and at the Roundtable with Women Entrepreneurs fit the "over a short period of time" schema better than the issue of revealing the (possible) tapes, since they both deal with durative situations, whereas an announcement about tapes would be nearly punctual.
RachelP said,
June 10, 2017 @ 1:10 pm
Not suggesting it's pertinent to Trump's thinking, obvs, but in Dutch you would use 'over' to mean 'in' i.e. 'after' (not 'within') a period of time, wouldn't you? 'Over een korte periode' – 'in a short period of time'.
Duncan said,
June 10, 2017 @ 3:36 pm
No comments mentioning yet…
"Short period of time" vs. "short time" (or even "shortly"), or "short period"? Why the "period of"? To me it's entirely extraneous and sounds unnatural, particularly when the specific period of time (days/weeks/months/whatever) isn't mentioned. Regional or personal speaking quirk?
Inserting the otherwise extraneous "period of" to me draws the focus to the period itself, which I'd then expect to be specifically named, (seconds/minutes/hours/)days/weeks/months(/years), perhaps with a prepended number, and likely compared to a relatively longer expected period. (Obama/Clinton couldn't change it in N years, I did it in two months.) I see the specific period mentioned in some of the quotes, but even there it seems to be only an aside, hardly enough to call attention to the specific length of the period itself, as opposed to simply "short time".
By about the third quote I had noticed it, and by the sixth, it was getting uncomfortable to continue reading as a result.
At least here, had Trump simply said "I'll tell you about it over a short time", or alternatively, "short period", despite still using "over" as opposed to "in", the immediate or extremely short time implication of a "period of time" without then stating the length of time, would have gone away, and I'd have taken it as the "soon", or "all in due time" that Trump apparently intended.
Indeed, "I'll tell you about it _over_ a short time" (or period) would have implied that the answer is too complex to discuss in answer to a single press conference question, and that the more complex answer would be coming out /over/ (as opposed to in) a somewhat longer period, perhaps days or weeks, but still (relatively) "soon".
Which would have left the news people and audience to wonder what the complexity of an answer to an apparently binary yes/no question could possibly be that it would take such an extended continuing time to answer, but that's the effect in any case.
BasJ said,
June 10, 2017 @ 4:07 pm
@RachelP
You're right, although the example you give doesn't have that meaning (I'm not sure I'd use it at all). But you would say things like:
Over 10 minuten "In 10 minutes"
Over een tijdje "In a (short) while"
AntC said,
June 10, 2017 @ 4:59 pm
@bratschegirl It only takes a very short period of time to say “There aren’t any.”
But it takes much longer (if there are any) to doctor the tapes so they roughly correspond to Comey's testimony but put Trump in a better light; or (if there weren't any) to concoct some semblance.
JPL said,
June 10, 2017 @ 11:49 pm
I think you're right to assimilate this example to the pattern such that he intended, "I'll tell you about it over [the/a next/last] [very/fairly] short period of time." The addition of the modifier "next/last" indicates that he understands the expression "short period of time" not only as expressing an event's relative duration, but also as a standard unit of time independent of an event's duration, where normal people would use expressions such as "the past few weeks" or "the next few days". Does he use these alternative expressions ("weeks/days") in similar circumstances?
Bart said,
June 11, 2017 @ 2:56 am
@ BasJ
I’m not Dutch but my instinct is that ‘Over 10 minutes’ would be right in eg “The bus leaves in 10 minutes from now”.
But it would not be used in “The bus usually gets to the school in 10 minutes.”
BasJ said,
June 11, 2017 @ 4:51 pm
@ Bart
Your instinct is correct.
BZ said,
June 12, 2017 @ 9:52 am
While most of the discussed examples don't sound standard to me, I would interpret "over x amount of time" as "not all at once", which further implies in this case that there *are* tapes and their existence (or content) will be revealed at different points in time, but the overall period of time will be short.
If there are no tapes, I am picturing daily statements such as "we checked under the desk and didn't find any". Then later "We looked in the bedroom, but they're not there either", etc.
Jonathon Owen said,
June 19, 2017 @ 3:02 pm
My wife had a history professor who used "during this period of time" excessively. One time she kept a tally and recorded something like 120 instances during a 50-minute lecture, including one sentence in which she used it three times.