I was drawn to the expression, “presidential president” appearing in Washington Post’s (August 12) article titled, “What a presidential president would have said about Charlottesville.”
It follows:
“Here is what President Trump said Saturday about the violence in
Charlottesville sparked by ...
@Clare. Of course I checked. When I don't get the idea of the text, I've never failed to consult dictionaries before posting the question. Oxford Advanced English Learners Dictionary at hand defines simply adj. (without giving any of its meanings and showing only. example: a presidential campaign, presidential system of government. Readers English Japanese Dictionary defines it as adj. (1) of president. (2) governing, directing, commanding, both of which don't seem to fit to the above text.
You can definitely have a parent who is neither paternal or maternal, albeit those adjectives are normally predicative, e.g. "My mother lacked the maternal gene"
@Mari Lou A. I'm glad you are still looking at my post. If we call Mr Trump Presidential President, how about calling Mike Pence a "vice- presidential vice president?"
There's a Twitter account called Presidential Trump, which described itself as "Alternative parody account of how a mature, more presidential Trump should tweet.!"
I would avoid contemporary political references in questions if possible. They tend to degenerate into political rather than linguistic discussions and are unintelligible or uninteresting to those in other countries.
You should consider using a better dictionary, such as the regular Oxford dictionary online. If you're using learner's dictionaries you would better be asking questions on English Language Learners, not here
@David - The thing is, Trump's lack of "presidential" behavior has been broadly discussed since he first became a candidate. It's very hard to keep politics out of it. One can find a number of former presidents who were exemplars of "presidential" behavior, but it's much harder to find one who was even half as "non-presidential" as Trump. Net-net: Since Trump's rise the terms "presidential" and "non-presidential" have become much more common as terms referring to an individual's behavior.
@HotLicks — See, your comment includes political judgments. Now that doesn't bother me as US politics bore me. But they could well antagonize that half of the American public who voted for the current President. And then you'll likely end up with some rather ugly examples of English language and usage.
@HotLicks Or should I have said "US politics bores me"? No research and probably a duplicate. Oh well.
@Clare. True. Though Concise Oxford Dictionary (10th Ed.) and Oxford American Dictionary (1900 Ed.) at hand simply show 'presidential' as an adjective or derivative of 'president' without giving any explanation, online Oxford Dictionary provides the second definition of 'presidential as: Having a behavior or demeanor befitting a president. dignified and confident. By the way, I use to consult OAELD when I'm posting a question only because it happens to be on my electronic dictionary at hand, and I find it carries basically same or similar definitions with COD.
For what it's worth, the last bit of your question, most of your examples would be awkward at best and meaningless/confusing at worst. However, I would say that "childish child" would be valid. There are children who act mature for their age, and children who act childish (immature, selfish, etc). I'm sure that if used, any native speaker would have no problem at understanding your meaning.
Of course the phrase "presidential president" isn't often used and was used deliberately here for effect: it's designed to make you stop and think and ask yourself what it means.
I’m not convinced reason why the question which earned 8 up-votes less a handful down-votes and attracted 1k-plus view and solicited the valuable answer winning 28 up-votes is branded off--topic. In the answerers and comments, some said they haven't seen the phrase "presidential president" very often. Much less non native English speakers like me. Closing a question for reason of off-topic happened with my previous question on Mr. Trump’s “covefefe” which garnered 458k views.
Continued. I suggest those close-voters to learn the FACT that the questions once branded as off-topic by only a handful users were on-topic to a thousand to 458,000, 4.5 times as many as EL&U user base.
@YoichiOishi Anyone who knows your reputation has no doubt that you did careful research before asking the question. For the benefit of future visitors, would you most kindly edit the question and summarize your research effort.
@Hot Licks. I'm not saying "Off ttopic" is popularity contest. I'm saying people basically wouldn't interested in off-topic subject and give 10 or more up-votes, no less a favorite vote. They are not dumb as you might think. Users have good appreciation.
A question can be perfectly interesting, popular and "hot" even when it is off-topic. The only reason your question has attracted that many views with 18 upvotes vs 8 downvotes is because the name of Donald Trump is on everybody's lips.
People have heard and read countless times how unpresidential the US president is, so "presidential" is an adjective that is being tossed around of late. Your subsequent edits made the question more interesting, relevant and useful to the site, but only RaceYouAnytime has addressed it in any detail.
Asking what "presidential" means is a very off-topic question on EL&U, (not on ELL) which is what you were essentially asking about i.e. Does “presidential president” mean a desirable / ideal president? The question as it currently stands is, I repeat, more useful and interesting after expanding your second question.
＠Mari-Lou A. As it happened several time (confeve and so on, I forgot) in the past. Every time my question is closed, it's reopened immediately. So many men, so many minds. I wish we could decide whether it's on or off topic by a simple math formula, like 1+1 =2. I'm really sick & tired of arguing what is on-topic and off-topic. How many times have we argued it? I've wasted enough time and words on this issue. Now my post is reopened AS USUAL. The game is set. It's over. I don't want to argue on this matter anymore. However, Mari-Lou. please don't take me bad.
Continued: You are my good, longtime friend. I appreciate your usual attention on my post.
No. I don't want to continue unfruitful discussions like on-or-off-topic issue of a post any further. It's an endless, circular argument until we bring it to the U.S. Supreme Court to beg for its decision. You guys keep yap if you wish. I won't.
@YoichiOishi - People typically vote to reopen a question because they want to yap on and on about it. I've observed that questions that are unfairly closed are rarely reopened.
Discussion on question by Yoichi Oish…
Discussion on question by Yoichi Oish…