Native speakers of English know what is meant by the following:
We were all worried that the test would be hard, but even Ronald passed.
You don’t get to say afterward that you didn’t technically call Ronald dumb. You did, and everyone knows you did.
When I read “was nasty” I see it as past perfect… i.e. an action that took place in the past to completion. Similar to “she was mean” doesn’t mean “she’s a mean person”, it means “she said a mean thing”. It’s the same with “nasty”. People other than Trump use it the same way.
Not really. When men insult him, he often goes far beyond “nasty” (starting with “loser” and getting worse from there). Yes there’s a gender distinction but not with any important difference than I can see.
Beyond “nasty”, besides “nasty”-He saves the term “nasty” for females in almost all cases, and if you can’t see that “nasty women” obviously means something to him then the problem is yours, not ours. It is juvenile “girls are nasty” crap that he gets away with because of all the apologists out there always ready to tell us what he “really” meant. Well, we know what he meant(despite all the creative interpretations), and we know he lied yet again when he said he didn’t say it…which I noticed you didn’t cover at all.
Yes. It’s incredible obvious that he did. Anyone that says otherwise is obeying Big Brother’s final command.
Mainly, but during the flight he used it to refer to the Mayor of London. I am sure Mr. Khan’s feelings are so terribly hurt, not. And even that wasn’t good enough to displace the footie, because the Brits know what’s important and tantrums aren’t it:
unfortunately, Will is a respected conservative intellectual (I may not always agree with his points, but he is fair), who got called out as “major loser” by someone who doesn’t even read books, and Trump calls himself a conservative
I mean, how can one argue with the inassailable logic of “well obviously”. :rolleyes:
You can easily look at my posting history to see that I condemn Trump harshly and energetically pretty much every times the subject comes up. Pretty much, except when I see my side acting unwisely.
No, you didn’t notice that. What you are experiencing is your own failure to notice that I specifically covered it in my first post.
As a Trump-hater this is exactly what I wish people on my side would stop doing… lathering themselves into a righteous outrage over some ambiguous unimportant thing without bothering to think it through at all. It’s cannon fodder for people who think liberals are hyperventilating ninnies who are obsessed over vague word choice.
You missed the second “not” in my post (easy to do). I was disagreeing with the OP who claimed he was not technically calling her nasty. You and I are in agreement 
It’s not past perfect - that would be “had been nasty.” It’s indirect speech using past simple as a reporting verb. Like you’d say “I didn’t know she was Countess of Dumbarton,” not is. That would not mean she’s no longer the Countess of Dumbarton, any more than Trump’s usage means she’s no longer “nasty.”
He often goes much further than nasty with women, too.
My mistake, the term is “simple past” for what I want to say. But I mean the same definition: an action completed in the past. If I say “she was pissed” it doesn’t imply she is still pissed today. If I say “she was mean” it doesn’t imply she is still mean today. Same thing with “she was nasty.” She said a nasty thing yesterday. It’s a thing she did.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m sure Trump thinks all women are slimy and nasty if he can’t put his hands on them. But that’s not what’s going on here and this is a dumb, futile point to prosecute.
But he’s not using simple past. He’s using reported speech, where the verb changes to simple past form but it’s referring to something in the present. They look the same, but in context it’s clear which one he’s using.
If someone said that about your wife or sister would you think oh, that’s fine, he’s just taking about the past?
Que Trump making some grade school insult about Dumbarton. How is he restraining himself? Is he starting to act like a grown up?
Clinton should have said “I didn’t know there were so many severely retarded deplorables that support Trump” so she could claim she never called them that.
I see your point and I can see how people might think it’s ambiguous in that way. But he is literally and contextually talking about an action that was completed in the past. Meghan Markle, in the past, indisputably said (well-deserved) unkind things about Trump.
Additionally it’s well documented that “be nasty” means “speak or behave unkindly”. Whichever tense you choose, Trump’s own speech patterns support the use of “nasty” as “unkind”. The context here is clearly about an unkind remark made in the past; there’s insufficient context to support whatever else is being asserted.
If someone said “she was nasty” and the context was that she said unkind things then I would take the simplest interpretation that “she was nasty” meant “she said something unkind”. I would then judge whether the unkindness was warranted, and possibly become nasty myself on her behalf. What I would not do in any case is declare a bad word crisis and commence twisting my panties over it.
Most certainly she should have said that. I know you meant this as a joke, but you also allude to a plain fact: public discourse now has a significant element of trolling and bullshit, and most Democrats are (to their detriment) well behind Republicans in this area.
Suggest that you read this brilliant piece from the brilliant Matt Yglesias The hack gap: how and why conservative nonsense dominates American politics.
But he didn’t just say “she was nasty.” He said “I didn’t know she was nasty.” The whole sentence makes the meaning different. You can’t tale out a load of words to change the meaning of what someone actually said.
He’s not using past simple just to report something that happened in the past, he’s using reported speech. This is not something any native English speaker needs to think about, it’s just how you speak.
I agree that he seems to think nasty has a different meaning to most of us do, and he basically meant “mean, unkind”. But he wasn’t saying it in the past tense. Please look up reported speech.
I’m sorry, this is wrong. His sentence - as constructed - could be either reported speech or simple past. You can’t conclusively say which one it is without knowing the intent. I have my ideas about intent, you have yours, and there’s also a case to be made that he never has any intent, he just runs his mouth.
This is my point; people see Trump using ambiguous language and saying “look, he’s calling women a bunch of nasty whores again” when there are equally likely cases to be made that he’s saying some different unimportant thing. It reinforces the perception that people are focused on uncharitable readings of his verbal gaffes because they have nothing else to criticize him on. Donald Trump hates women he doesn’t control. We can take this as axiomatic. The ways he expresses this don’t matter. His gaffes don’t matter.
This matters to me because this kind of petty schoolyard bullshit distracts from the gravely substantive reasons to be uniquely outraged about Trump. Could we maybe talk about his attacks on reproductive rights and the rights of rape victims? No, you don’t understand, THIS TIME we finally nailed him for calling a woman nasty. /s
Thanks for the excellent link. The article focuses on a general problem — how liberal journalists end up gulled — but does quote a dismaying study:
Welcome. Everybody should read everything Matt Yglesias writes, all the time.
It’s not a matter of interpretation, though. The context makes it completely unambiguous that it’s reported speech. Not everything is just a matter of opinion.
The ambiguity lies in the way he means “nasty.” It does seem like he uses that word in a less serious way than some people interpret it.
Gaffes don’t matter nearly as much as actual policies but they don’t stop people commenting on the substantive issues. There’s still huge amounts of pushback when it comes to the new laws that make lives more dangerous for women.
When I read the OP, I thought, “yep, it’s clear called her nasty.” But after reading this thread, I changed my mind. I believe his meaning was: “I didn’t know she said nasty things about me.”
After watching the YouTube video in the OP, I’m absolutely positive that’s the correct interpretation.
The interviewer asks, paraphrased, “Did you see that she was not so nice to you during your campaign?” and his response is, “I didn’t know she was nasty [to me during my campaign].”
It’s pretty clear in context.