GOP Primaries/Caucuses Discussions, Jokes and Predictions

[piscator]

Below you will find three examples of questions from previous final exams at Trump University. Use these sample questions and the answer key provided to prepare for next week’s big test.

1. Two plus two equals what?


(a) Maybe four.
(b) Could be four. Could be. Lotta people saying it’s five.
(c) I’m not saying it’s five; I’m saying it could be—could be five. You see these establishment hacks, losers, like Mitt Romney? Real crank. They hate me. They take answers like “could be” and say, “Oh, he says two plus two equals five.” I never said that. I never—I said “could be.” Could be six. We don’t know.
(d) All of the above.
(e) None of the above.
(f) D and E.

2. Describe a major theme of “The Old Man and the Sea.”

(a) Well, the theme is big. That I can assure you. Definitely no problem in the theme department. Quite big. Quite.
(b) I know what you want me to say here. You want me to say “yuge.” Well, I’m not. I’m not gonna say that.
(c) Should I say it? . . . No. I’m not gonna say it. But it is.
(d) Now—and I don’t even wanna bring it up—but you got a lot of people. I’m not going to mention names. O.K., Marco. You got Little Marco, who has a tiny theme. No, it’s true. Very small. Probably why he’s outta the race. Seriously, find me one person who says there was a big theme behind that campaign. But anyway, here’s Little Marco, saying I’m the one with the small theme. Can you believe that? Says I’m like Santiago in “The Old Man and the Sea.” Says I sometimes lose my harpoon—you know, prematurely—when I try to reel in the big fish. Totally not true.
(e) In fact, reminds me of the time I tried to get a date with Brooke Shields. Remember Brooke Shields? Gorgeous. Not like my wife. Gorgeous, though. I asked her out. She said no. Career went downhill after that. Left me like Santiago at the end of the book, hauling this gigantic mast home with nothing to show for my troubles.
(f) Seriously, “The Old Man and the Sea”? Please. Santiago’s not a winner. Here’s what you need to read: “The Art of the Deal.” Best book since the Bible. Probably better. People say that. I don’t. People do. Bible was, like, God with sixty ghostwriters. “The Art of the Deal” was just me, dictating to Tony Schwartz. Great guy. Takes dictation better than Moses.

3. H2O is the chemical symbol for what compound?

(a) What the hell’s “huh-twenty”?
(b) No, that’s what it says, “huh-twenty.” Or maybe the “H” is silent. I dunno.
(c) I didn’t say “huh-twenty.” You said “huh-twenty.” You asked me what “huh-twenty” was. You see, this is what the media does. They claim, “You said ‘huh-twenty!’ ” And I’m like, “I said? No you said ‘huh-twenty.’ I just repeated what you said.”
(d) That’s all they do, ask these totally bogus questions, when what they should be asking about is Hillary’s e-mails. That’s what this question should be about. Because what she did—wow. I mean, that’s why she’s hugging Obama every chance she gets.
(e) You know who else hugs Obama? Chris Christie.
(f) But we love Chris, don’t we? We love Chris.

Answer key:

1. I like A. I like B, too. D doesn’t do much for me, but E and F are real winners.

2. I’m gonna have to look into A and B. C is very compelling. Very. I hear good things about D through F. But I don’t wanna say anything yet.

3. I don’t know why people are saying there were three questions. There weren’t. I mean, do you have video? Show me the video where there were three questions. You can’t, because there is no video. People come here. They try to make trouble, saying we started a question three. We did not. And lemme tell ya, we’re gonna fight back. I’m not saying we’ll sue, but we could. Throw a few punches, ya know. Because this test prep is a great test prep. You thought so, too: you signed the agreement saying that you thought this was the greatest test prep of all time and that you wanted to be sued if video surfaced of you saying otherwise.

Congratulations, this was actually the final. You’ve passed. Now give me $35,000.

http://www.newyorker.com/humor/daily-sh ... mod-latest

[pErvinalia]

[Hermit]

He's not wrong, though, about nuclear weapons being the greater, more immediate risk.

... a “limited” regional nuclear war between antagonistic nuclear nations India and Pakistan could result in 300 million deaths, with 6.5 million tons of black soot released into the atmosphere. It would be enough to block out the sun and change global temperatures by 1.3 degrees Celcius. For comparison, global temperature only changed seven-tenths of 1 degree from 1880-2010. Precipitation in some parts of the world would fall by 50 percent, and the growing season would not be long enough to sustain staple crops. Two billion people would die of starvation, Helfand said.

http://www.news.cornell.edu/stories/201 ... ate-change

How stupid can one presidential candidate be? Turns out a nuclear war would solve two global problems: warming and over-population. Too many US voters swallow Trump's idiocies.

Where do you get the idea that Trump suggested nuclear war would solve any problem?

Where do you get the idea that I suggested that Trump suggested nuclear war would solve any problem?

In the post to which I responded.

Let's see now: If Trump was bright at all, he would eagerly welcome a limited nuclear war between Pakistan and India, for as the bit you quoted mentioned, it has the potential of lessening global over-population by 300 million immediately and another two billion in the following weeks or months, and it would lessen the dreaded warming trend by 1.3°C. What's not to like? I'm not suggesting that Trump suggested nuclear war would solve any problem at all. On the contrary; Trump should promote the idea. He's a fool for not doing so.

Looks as though your reading comprehension is in need of some remedial lessons.

[Hermit]

It was and is funny. In fact I have the add on on my browser which turns all instances of 'Trump' into 'Drumpf'.

What's so funny about it? I mean, other than the ethnocentric that German names sound funny to English speakers, what's so funny about Drumpf?

In the local dialect (Heinern) of Hessen, Germany, where I was born, Drumpf is short for Dummkopf.

You mean dumpf?

Not quite. 'Dumpf' means dull, but is not usually used to describe a personal characteristic or intellectual deficiency. It more commonly describes a sound, a pain or some other inanimate thing. In the dialect of the city, Darmstadt, I was born the word 'Drumpf' was popularly used as the shortened form for 'Dummkopf'. Unfortunately a formal provenance is impossible to establish now, for the dialect hardly reached beyond the southern region of Hesse to begin with, and its use was actively discouraged by parents beginning with Prussia's annexation of the state in 1866. They figured that hochdeutsch would give their children a better education and optimised their social and professional opportunities later in life. Though we kids still used it among ourselves, little else remained on paper. A local writer, Ernst Elias Niebergall, published a couple of satirical plays and wrote a few dozen stories for the Frankfurt Journal using the dialect between about 1835 and 1843, but his career was cut short when he died. Although one of his plays, Datterich, is still performed during Heinerfests, much of the rest perished during the fire bombings. Apart from that our local daily, the Darmstädter Echo, carried a weekly column titled "Es Heinerle verzählt" in which it spelt everything as it could be heard on the street. The paper still exists, but the column is long gone. Not even a stray reference to it has found its way to the internet. My guess is that Friedrich Drumpf would have been aware of its vernacular meaning. He was born and raised in Kallstadt, a town only 55 kilometres from the city I hail from.

[piscator]

"Heinerfest" heh

[pErvinalia]

Maybe "Drumpf" became the word for dummkopf because of Frieddy. I think we've established the provenance of a word!

[Hermit]

Maybe "Drumpf" became the word for dummkopf because of Frieddy.

That is a possibility. Datterich, the chief protagonist in Niebergall's play of that name, was a sacked minor government official who spent all his time drinking, mouthing off and playing cards at the local pub. To call someone 'verdattert' came to mean someone who is totally useless or hopelessly idiotic.

[pErvinalia]

Don't forget Rick Santorum...

[Forty Two]

Let's see now: If Trump was bright at all, he would eagerly welcome a limited nuclear war between Pakistan and India, for as the bit you quoted mentioned, it has the potential of lessening global over-population by 300 million immediately and another two billion in the following weeks or months, and it would lessen the dreaded warming trend by 1.3°C. What's not to like? I'm not suggesting that Trump suggested nuclear war would solve any problem at all. On the contrary; Trump should promote the idea. He's a fool for not doing so.

Looks as though your reading comprehension is in need of some remedial lessons.

Your assertion is that Trump is a fool for not promoting the idea of nuclear war and its benefits to cooling the globe and depopulating the world? And, you think too many people swallow Trump's idiocies?

Is it only Trump who would welcome nuclear war, if he was "bright" at all? Or, would other candidates also welcome it, were they bright?

[Forty Two]

It was and is funny. In fact I have the add on on my browser which turns all instances of 'Trump' into 'Drumpf'.

What's so funny about it? I mean, other than the ethnocentric that German names sound funny to English speakers, what's so funny about Drumpf?

In the local dialect (Heinern) of Hessen, Germany, where I was born, Drumpf is short for Dummkopf.

You mean dumpf?

Not quite. 'Dumpf' means dull, but is not usually used to describe a personal characteristic or intellectual deficiency. It more commonly describes a sound, a pain or some other inanimate thing. In the dialect of the city, Darmstadt, I was born the word 'Drumpf' was popularly used as the shortened form for 'Dummkopf'. Unfortunately a formal provenance is impossible to establish now, for the dialect hardly reached beyond the southern region of Hesse to begin with, and its use was actively discouraged by parents beginning with Prussia's annexation of the state in 1866. They figured that hochdeutsch would give their children a better education and optimised their social and professional opportunities later in life. Though we kids still used it among ourselves, little else remained on paper. A local writer, Ernst Elias Niebergall, published a couple of satirical plays and wrote a few dozen stories for the Frankfurt Journal using the dialect between about 1835 and 1843, but his career was cut short when he died. Although one of his plays, Datterich, is still performed during Heinerfests, much of the rest perished during the fire bombings. Apart from that our local daily, the Darmstädter Echo, carried a weekly column titled "Es Heinerle verzählt" in which it spelt everything as it could be heard on the street. The paper still exists, but the column is long gone. Not even a stray reference to it has found its way to the internet. My guess is that Friedrich Drumpf would have been aware of its vernacular meaning. He was born and raised in Kallstadt, a town only 55 kilometres from the city I hail from.

Do you have any example of its use in this manner? Online I found nothing.

[Hermit]

Let's see now: If Trump was bright at all, he would eagerly welcome a limited nuclear war between Pakistan and India, for as the bit you quoted mentioned, it has the potential of lessening global over-population by 300 million immediately and another two billion in the following weeks or months, and it would lessen the dreaded warming trend by 1.3°C. What's not to like? I'm not suggesting that Trump suggested nuclear war would solve any problem at all. On the contrary; Trump should promote the idea. He's a fool for not doing so.

Looks as though your reading comprehension is in need of some remedial lessons.

Your assertion is that Trump is a fool for not promoting the idea of nuclear war and its benefits to cooling the globe and depopulating the world?

Ah. You got it at last.

[Svartalf]

Herm, stop breaking all my sarcasmeters dammit!

[Hermit]

It was and is funny. In fact I have the add on on my browser which turns all instances of 'Trump' into 'Drumpf'.

What's so funny about it? I mean, other than the ethnocentric that German names sound funny to English speakers, what's so funny about Drumpf?

In the local dialect (Heinern) of Hessen, Germany, where I was born, Drumpf is short for Dummkopf.

You mean dumpf?

Not quite. 'Dumpf' means dull, but is not usually used to describe a personal characteristic or intellectual deficiency. It more commonly describes a sound, a pain or some other inanimate thing. In the dialect of the city, Darmstadt, I was born the word 'Drumpf' was popularly used as the shortened form for 'Dummkopf'. Unfortunately a formal provenance is impossible to establish now, for the dialect hardly reached beyond the southern region of Hesse to begin with, and its use was actively discouraged by parents beginning with Prussia's annexation of the state in 1866. They figured that hochdeutsch would give their children a better education and optimised their social and professional opportunities later in life. Though we kids still used it among ourselves, little else remained on paper. A local writer, Ernst Elias Niebergall, published a couple of satirical plays and wrote a few dozen stories for the Frankfurt Journal using the dialect between about 1835 and 1843, but his career was cut short when he died. Although one of his plays, Datterich, is still performed during Heinerfests, much of the rest perished during the fire bombings. Apart from that our local daily, the Darmstädter Echo, carried a weekly column titled "Es Heinerle verzählt" in which it spelt everything as it could be heard on the street. The paper still exists, but the column is long gone. Not even a stray reference to it has found its way to the internet. My guess is that Friedrich Drumpf would have been aware of its vernacular meaning. He was born and raised in Kallstadt, a town only 55 kilometres from the city I hail from.

Do you have any example of its use in this manner? Online I found nothing.

I spent the better part of a paragraph answering that, and you still missed it?

[Forty Two]

I was asking for back-up. I.e. - rather than your assertion, I would be interested in seeing the word "drumpf" actually used in that context. Generally, there would be its use in print somewhere. Even if there isn't something recent, if "Drumpf was popularly used as the shortened form of Dummkopf" then surely there would be an example of such usage somewhere. If there isn't, then it would seem to be mere speculation that it was actually "popularly" used that way. And, if indeed it was used that way, I don't find any reference to that anywhere I look.

According to this piece, Drumpf doesn't mean anything, and it's an old German name dating back at least hundreds of years. http://www.bustle.com/articles/144969-w ... ranslation

I haven't seen any name etymology page or word etymology page even suggesting drumpf was ever a word. Excuse my skepticism, but your claim that "drumpf" was popularly used as short for dummkopf and then fell out of favor, except among the unwritten usage of children for a century, well, it really doesn't give me anything to go on. And, if it's really a very local usage, even in Germany, I think it's rather pointless to mention it. It also strikes me as questionable -- the word "dumpf" does, in fact, mean dull or dim or stupid - short version of dummkopf. So, if there is a drumpf word, where an r was actually added, surely there would be some actual record of it, apart from memory?

[Hermit]

I was asking for back-up. I.e. - rather than your assertion

I got that the first time you asked, and you asked after I had already told you it won't be forthcoming. Let me try to explain to you once more why not.

Here is a map of Germany.



As countries go, it is not particularly large. Your country is about 30 times larger, and even France, Germany's neighbour to the west, is twice its size. Now locate Hessen. That state makes up about 1/17 of Germany. Now look at the map of Südhessen. It is the coloured bits, and it's a third of the size of the entire state.



That area plus a small fragment of Baden-Württemberg and Rheinland Pfalz is where heinern takes place. Kallstadt is in that fraction. I travelled through Kallstadt twice, by the way. Even today it's just a small village. It marked the half way mark between my place of birth and the French border. Took me about six hours each way on my pushbike.

In 2005 the total population speaking the dialect would have been about 4 million. Or rather less than that, really, seeing it is actively discouraged. When I went to the Carl Schurz Schule in the south of the city of Darmstadt, maybe half of us spoke it. When I went to the Georg Büchner Schule in the north, I was the only one, and soon lost the use of it. It was regarded as uncouth there to heiner.

There simply was not the bulk of usage that would cause the dialect to be systematically immortalised on paper. I mentioned the only two written sources I know of - Nibergall's plays and articles, and a weekly column in the local paper. Considering those circumstances, my personal recollection on the matter is all you'll get unless you make the effort to travel to Hessen in person and interview some oldtimers yourself, but if you went to so much effort just to get to the bottom of such a bagatelle for your own satisfaction, you'd have to be a bit of a drumpf.