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We tend to assume that people at the top and within the 1% are extremely articulate and educated because of the positions of power that they have in our society. But that’s not always true. Many powerful people, including President Donald Trump, constantly misspell words, misuse grammar, and even confidently send emails to their employees and other businessmen that are sloppy and unprofessional.

According to psychology, there might be a reason why many elites are negligent when it comes to the basics of grammar and language, believe it or not. It has little to do with their ability to write and more to do with how their power gives them total immunity from scrutiny. Basically, they don’t care and they don’t have to care.

Why the elite’s bad grammar and poor spelling only give them more power.

One of the best examples of this bad grammar and poor spelling is from President Donald Trump himself. Since Trump entered the political arena, he and his team have had an impressive number of communications with typos, spelling errors, and misuse of words.

Some examples include back in May 2017, the White House released a statement saying one of Trump’s goals during his trip to Israel was to “promote the possibility of lasting peach” in the region. In that same notice, the White House misspelled the “Sepulchre” in Church of the Holy Sepulchre, writing “Sepulcher,”  inserted a superfluous apostrophe in the word “Israelis,” and left a “d” off “coupled.”

Another infamous example of Trump’s questionable grammar happened back in December 2016, when he described the Chinese seizure of a U.S. Navy drone as an “unpresidented act.” After misspelling unprecedented and getting mocked online for it, he deleted the tweet and replaced it with the correct version hours later. These offer only a snippet of gaffes over the years, however. Remember when he suddenly discovered the word “groceries?” Or, how about more recently, his struggle saying acetaminophen? This all begs the question, what gives?

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It’s not just Trump that cares little about the nuanced rules of the English language.

Chances are, you’ve at least read the Epstein email headlines that have come out in the last few days. Regardless of their meaning, we are talking about a man who hobnobbed regularly with billionaires, and those emails are literally an English teacher’s nightmare fuel.

There are random capitalizations, run-on sentences, weird punctuation, you name it. They read more like texts you shouldn’t be sending your ex after a girls’ night. In a post to Threads, user Elle Kay summed it up perfectly: “After reading emails from the richest, most powerful men in the world, it makes sense why they paid people to create AI.”

Threads

According to French thinker Pierre Bourdieu, who pointed this out decades ago, when the elite show blatant disregard for language formalities, it functions as a way to distinguish themselves as better than. You might think that seems a bit backwards, but think of it from this perspective: When you are that rich and powerful, the rules and codes of conduct no longer apply, and that includes the rules of grammar and spelling. It enforces class privileges and keeps the pedestal for the upper class.

There’s another interesting aspect to this as well. As writer Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry explained, “Trump connects with the white working class, with the socially downtrodden, with the frustrated and despairing, and with the poorly educated and financially struggling not in spite of his rough-edged manner of speaking, but because of it.” To his most devoted base, Trump sounds relatable. Even though his life is completely unrelatable in every other possible way.

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The grammar and spelling differences between classes are an example of how money and power change the rules. 

It’s often joked about that when it comes to crime, the rich and powerful are immune to laws, and to some degree, that’s true. Privilege, the privilege that comes from money, means you have connections, you can pay for lawyers, you can spin the media with PR reps, and you can change the narrative.

Imagine for a moment if you were going to send an email to Bill Gates. Would you painstakingly write it, ensuring it made sense and followed the rules of language? Of course! You’d do the same for your boss or company CEO. Now, what would you think if Bill Gates emailed you and it sounded like what screenwriter Nadine Jolie Courtney jokingly described as a “drunk chimpanzee?” Would you think less of him? Probably not. If your email to him read that way, however, you can be that you would be judged. 

It’s an example of “do as I say, not as I do.” It’s the hall pass of privilege. It’s the power that allows the elite to say, “I don’t have to waste my time with this because my time is more valuable than yours.”

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Nia Tipton is a staff writer with a bachelor’s degree in creative writing and journalism who covers news and lifestyle topics that focus on psychology, relationships, and the human experience.