Ivanka Trump and the English grammar


An interesting issue of the English grammar, mainly its vocabulary, is that it comprises several words for many combinatorial or daily-life situations which for example other Romance languages do not seem to have. Remember is different from remind, between is not the same as amongst, switch is slightly different from swap, and lend and borrow are the opposite things. Within the same logic grammatical reasoning any literate mind knows the the word latter is different from the word last. The Oxford Dictionary tells us that latter means "the second or second mentioned of two people or things" while last means "coming after all others in time or order". Therefore when the group comprises two elements or alternatives orderly presented latter shall be used for the last element, while when the group comprises more than two elements one shall refer last. An interesting parallel might be found with between and amongst. Nonetheless as Ivanka Trump was in Germany for a conference, when asked what was her official role as daughter of the president and presented with three different possibilities she replied "surely not the latter". Wanted to be grammatically snob, and made a grammatical mistake. As we say in my mother tongue "tal pai, tal filha"!

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