{"id":28969,"date":"2016-10-23T07:19:30","date_gmt":"2016-10-23T12:19:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu\/nll\/?p=28969"},"modified":"2016-10-25T12:17:46","modified_gmt":"2016-10-25T17:17:46","slug":"the-history-of-trumpian-big-league-now-even-bigger-league","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu\/nll\/?p=28969","title":{"rendered":"The history of Trumpian \"big league\" (now even bigger league!)"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Donald Trump, as we have discussed a few times now, is fond of using <em>big league<\/em>\u00a0as a post-verbal adjunct, though it's often misheard as <em>bigly<\/em>.\u00a0(See: \"<a href=\"http:\/\/languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu\/nll\/?p=24240\">Bigly<\/a>,\" 2\/26\/16; \"<a href=\"http:\/\/languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu\/nll\/?p=25566\">The world wants 'bigly'<\/a>,\" 5\/5\/16; \"<a href=\"http:\/\/languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu\/nll\/?p=28898\">Don't let 'bigly' catch on<\/a>,\" 10\/18\/16.) On the night of Wednesday's\u00a0presidential\u00a0debate, UC Berkeley's Susan Lin helpfully shared\u00a0a spectrogram of the relevant utterance from Trump,\u00a0demonstrating the \"velar pinch\" associated with the final \/g\/ of\u00a0<em>big league<\/em>. The spectrogram first appeared\u00a0in the Facebook group <a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/photo.php?fbid=10107216114295923&amp;set=gm.1424472250916244&amp;type=3&amp;theater\">Friends of Berkeley Linguists<\/a>\u00a0and then was tweeted by <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/jennycz\/status\/788924334639353856\">Jennifer Nycz<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/ByunLab\/status\/788932905053646849\">Tara McAllister Byun<\/a>.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"500\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">It\u2019s def \u201cbig-league\u201d-check out that velar pinch! (no it\u2019s not something Trump does to women; is a cue to \/g\/). Spectrogram from Susan Lin! <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/91AdY60VN4\">pic.twitter.com\/91AdY60VN4<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&mdash; Jen Nycz (@jennycz) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/jennycz\/status\/788924334639353856?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">October 20, 2016<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>After it\u00a0circulated on Twitter, Lin's spectrogram then got incorporated into news stories from <a href=\"http:\/\/mashable.com\/2016\/10\/20\/bigly-big-league-debate-linguists\/\">Mashable<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.thrillist.com\/news\/nation\/bigly-or-big-league-donald-trump-debate\">Thrillist<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/mic.com\/articles\/157289\/bigly-or-big-league-this-is-what-donald-trump-is-actually-saying\">Mic<\/a>, and Washington Post's <a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/news\/the-fix\/wp\/2016\/10\/19\/america-wants-to-know-is-it-bigly-or-big-league\/\">The Fix<\/a>, presented as the authoritative word on a subject that has clearly been on a lot of people's minds. (Philip Bump, in his piece for The Fix, noted that on the night of the debate, \"bigly donald trump\" came in third among all\u00a0Trump-related Google searches, after \"donald trump iraq\" and \"donald trump iraq war.\")<\/p>\n<p>Now that the phoneticians have spoken,\u00a0this is a good time to look at the history of Trump's peculiar usage, which shows no sign of abating. Just yesterday, at a rally at Regent University in Virginia Beach, Trump ratcheted up\u00a0<em>big league<\/em> by pairing it with\u00a0<em>even bigger league<\/em> &#8212; though of course many people heard it as\u00a0<em>even biggerly<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<p>https:\/\/twitter.com\/SopanDeb\/status\/789932730087796736<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"500\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">Here is video of Donald Trump saying &quot;bigly&quot; and \u201cbiggerly\u201d today during a speech in Virginia Beach. <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/iYkwJ5e5LX\">pic.twitter.com\/iYkwJ5e5LX<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&mdash; Scott Gustin (@ScottGustin) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/ScottGustin\/status\/789929801767321600?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">October 22, 2016<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>I looked through some news databases to trace\u00a0Trump's growing penchant for <em>big league<\/em>. First, let's turn the clock back to 1993, when Japan's economy was in the midst of a collapse. In August of that year, Trump, with his soon-to-be-wife Marla Maples, visited Tokyo on an Asian trip, where he was quoted as following:<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\">I have a lot of real estate friends in Japan, many of whom I have seen (this trip), and <strong>these people are hurting big league<\/strong>,\u00a0and they think it is going to get a lot worse. (<em>The Daily Yomiuri<\/em>, Aug. 19, 1993)<\/p>\n<p>This is the earliest example I've been able to find of\u00a0Trumpian\u00a0<em>big league<\/em>. The next example I turned up is from 1997, in an AP article about Trump canceling plans for an addition to his Taj Mahal casino in Atlantic City. Trump was irritated that the\u00a0New Jersey state government had offered incentives to a rival casino developer, including the construction of\u00a0a tunnel link.<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\">We're doing that because we think <strong>the state of New Jersey is being ripped big league<\/strong>. The taxpayers are being hurt badly by this tunnel transaction. (<a href=\"http:\/\/lasvegassun.com\/news\/1997\/mar\/20\/angry-over-mirage-deals-trump-cancels-plans-for-ta\/\">Associated Press<\/a>, Mar. 20, 1997)<\/p>\n<p>Two years later in 1999, Trump used <em>big league<\/em> in a high-profile media appearance: his announcement on CNN's \"Larry King Live\" that he was forming a presidential exploratory committee to consider a run on the Reform Party ticket.<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\">The fact is, that the world is ripping off this country: <strong>Germany is ripping us off big league<\/strong>; <strong>Saudi Arabia is ripping us off big league<\/strong>; France, I mean, they're the worst team player I've ever seen in my life. (<a href=\"http:\/\/www.cnn.com\/ALLPOLITICS\/stories\/1999\/10\/08\/trump.transcript\/\">CNN<\/a>, Oct. 8, 1999)<\/p>\n<p>https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=peBa3SU46Qs&#038;t=14m17s<\/p>\n<p>Later that month, he repeated the formulation on NBC's \"Meet the Press.\"<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\">I think if we go back and negotiate with Japan and Germany and lots of countries, France, that are just ripping us&#8211;Saudi Arabia&#8211;you look at these deficits&#8211;that <strong>are just ripping us big league<\/strong>&#8230; I mean, they're just ripping us, and <strong>they're ripping us big league<\/strong>. (\"<a href=\"https:\/\/votesmart.org\/public-statement\/367\/discusses-his-bid-for-the-reform-party-presidential-nomination-interview\">Meet the Press<\/a>,\" Oct. 24, 1999)<\/p>\n<p>https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=l_joQ1kxxZs&#038;t=10m55s<\/p>\n<p>Trump never did end up running for president in 2000, though his\u00a0<em>big league<\/em> usage would continue. In early 2004, Trump's competitive reality show \"The Apprentice\" debuted on NBC, and in\u00a0a voiceover at the beginning of the first episode, he used\u00a0<em>big league<\/em> again.<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\">But it wasn't always so easy. About thirteen years ago, I was seriously in trouble. I was billions of dollars in debt, but I fought back and <strong>I won big league<\/strong>. (\"The Apprentice,\" Season 1, Episode 1, Jan. 8, 2004)<\/p>\n<p>https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=P6ihk_5g5So&#038;t=1m7s<\/p>\n<p>Even then, there was confusion about Trump's turn of phrase, as he was quoted in some reviews as saying \"I won bigly\" (e.g. <a href=\"http:\/\/www.lawrence.com\/news\/2004\/jan\/08\/nbc_holds\/\">here<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/media\/2004\/oct\/05\/television.apprentice\">here<\/a>).<\/p>\n<p>A decade later, when Trump was once again flirting with a presidential run, he spoke at the 2014 meeting of the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC). And once again,\u00a0<em>big league\u00a0<\/em>was in his arsenal.<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\">For those that don't understand devaluation, what they are saying is basically, <strong>we're ripping you big league<\/strong>&#8230; And believe me, they're taking our jobs, and <strong>they're taking them big league<\/strong>. (<a href=\"https:\/\/www.c-span.org\/video\/?318134-9\/donald-trump-addresses-cpac&amp;start=150\">C-SPAN<\/a>,\u00a0Mar. 6, 2014)<\/p>\n<p>But it wasn't until he announced he would be running in the Republican primaries that Trump's\u00a0<em>big league<\/em> got much attention. In his announcement speech on June 16, 2015, he used it twice.<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\">Think of it. Iran is taking over Iraq, and <strong>they\u2019re taking it over big league<\/strong>. (<a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=q_q61B-DyPk&amp;t=10m5s\">YouTube<\/a>)<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\">But <strong>Obamacare kicks in in 2016, really big league<\/strong>. It is going to be amazingly destructive. (<a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=q_q61B-DyPk&amp;t=16m35s\">YouTube<\/a>)<\/p>\n<p>The misperception of\u00a0Trump's <em>big league<\/em> as\u00a0<em>bigly<\/em> started in earnest with that speech, with\u00a0a <a href=\"http:\/\/blog.dictionary.com\/donald-trump-and-the-pope\/\">Dictionary.com blog post<\/a>\u00a0noting a spike in online searches for\u00a0<em>bigly<\/em>. In September 2015, Slate's Jim Newell <a href=\"http:\/\/www.slate.com\/blogs\/the_slatest\/2015\/09\/24\/bigly_or_big_league_what_exactly_is_donald_trump_saying.html\">wrote about the confusion<\/a>\u00a0and got\u00a0campaign spokeswoman Hope Hicks to confirm that Trump was indeed saying\u00a0<em>big league<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p>More recently, the Trump campaign has sought to capitalize on the phrase with the\u00a0#<em>bigleague <\/em>hashtag. As Lauren Squires noted, you can even get it on a shirt or button.<\/p>\n<p>https:\/\/twitter.com\/prof_squires\/status\/783323536064741377<\/p>\n<p>And even though the candidate almost always uses\u00a0<em>big league<\/em> in an adverbial fashion, the Trump campaign has also\u00a0made use of the adjectival form in its <a href=\"http:\/\/www.bigleaguetruth.com\">#BigLeagueTruth Team<\/a>, which enlisted supporters to fact-check Hillary Clinton in the debates.<\/p>\n<p>Adjectival\u00a0<em>big-league<\/em> is not uncommon, however; it's much\u00a0harder to find examples of it used\u00a0adverbially. I've come across\u00a0<em>big-league\u00a0<\/em>used occasionally\u00a0to modify an adjective, as in this example from Stephen King's 1986 novel\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/books.google.com\/books?id=S85NCwAAQBAJ&amp;pg=PA534\"><em>It<\/em><\/a> (cited in\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/greensdictofslang.com\/entry\/3keh76y\"><em>Green's Dictionary of Slang<\/em><\/a>):<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\">The first time I came in contact with anything that summer that was weird\u2014I mean <strong>really big-league weird<\/strong>\u2014was in George's room, with you.<\/p>\n<p>But it's the use of <em>big league\u00a0<\/em>as a post-modifier for a verb phrase\u00a0that is particular to Trump-ese. As <a href=\"http:\/\/languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu\/nll\/?p=24240\">Mark Liberman noted<\/a>, many\u00a0speakers of American English\u00a0use\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.merriam-webster.com\/dictionary\/big-time\"><em>big-time<\/em><\/a>\u00a0in\u00a0that role, but <em>big league<\/em> is far less expected. That peculiarity of usage, along with Trump's tendency not to release the final \/g\/, plays a large part in\u00a0people perceiving what he says as\u00a0<em>bigly<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p>(I had more to say about <em>big league<\/em> vs.\u00a0<em>bigly<\/em> in an NYU panel on political rhetoric on Wednesday, before the final debate &#8212; video is <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=u5D9fmv0Czo&#038;t=21m45s\">here<\/a>.)<\/p>\n<p><i>Update<\/i>: More on <em>big league<\/em> vs.\u00a0<em>bigly<\/em> from NPR <a href=\"http:\/\/www.npr.org\/2016\/10\/23\/499073856\/so-which-is-it-bigly-or-big-league-linguists-take-on-a-common-trumpism\">here<\/a>. And welcome, readers of the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2016\/10\/25\/us\/politics\/trump-bigly-big-league-linguists.html\">New York Times<\/a>! (And <a href=\"http:\/\/wonkette.com\/607857\/linguists-trump-is-saying-big-league-not-bigly-still-stupid-either-way\">Wonkette<\/a>, and <a href=\"http:\/\/nymag.com\/scienceofus\/2016\/10\/does-trump-say-bigly-or-big-league.html\">New York Magazine<\/a>&#8230;)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Donald Trump, as we have discussed a few times now, is fond of using big league\u00a0as a post-verbal adjunct, though it's often misheard as bigly.\u00a0(See: \"Bigly,\" 2\/26\/16; \"The world wants 'bigly',\" 5\/5\/16; \"Don't let 'bigly' catch on,\" 10\/18\/16.) On the night of Wednesday's\u00a0presidential\u00a0debate, UC Berkeley's Susan Lin helpfully shared\u00a0a spectrogram of the relevant utterance from [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":true,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-28969","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-language-and-politics"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu\/nll\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28969","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu\/nll\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu\/nll\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu\/nll\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu\/nll\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=28969"}],"version-history":[{"count":34,"href":"https:\/\/languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu\/nll\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28969\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":29041,"href":"https:\/\/languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu\/nll\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28969\/revisions\/29041"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu\/nll\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=28969"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu\/nll\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=28969"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu\/nll\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=28969"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}