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Words people looked up after the first presidential debate


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Words people looked up after the first presidential debate

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From taxes to white supremacists, and to coronavirus, the clashes came thick and fast in the first head-to-head. 

The first debate between President Donald Trump and Democratic challenger Joe Biden deteriorated into bitter taunts and near chaos Tuesday night as Trump repeatedly interrupted his opponent with angry - and personal - jabs that sometimes overshadowed the sharply different visions each man has for a nation facing historic crises.

In the most tumultuous presidential debate in recent memory, Trump refused to condemn white supremacists who have supported him, telling one such group known as Proud Boys to "stand back, stand by."

There were also heated clashes over the president's handling of the pandemic, the integrity of the election results, deeply personal attacks about Biden's family and how the Supreme Court will shape the future of the nation's health care.

But it was the belligerent tone that was persistent, somehow fitting for what has been an extraordinarily ugly campaign. 

But there are many that helped capture what the national conversations revolved around in the following hours.

The Merriam-Webster Dictionary shared terms like white supremacist, antifa, fascism and racism were all trending after the debate.

Here's what else Americans were looking up after President Donald Trump and Democratic rival Joe Biden took the stage:

'Logorrhea'
According to the dictionary, logorrhea is defined as "excessive and often incoherent talkativeness or wordiness." Lookups on Tuesday night spiked 56,000%, the dictionary said.

President Donald Trump was criticized for his repeated interruptions throughout the night, once prompting Biden to respond, "Will you shut up, man?" The term jumped to the top of the website's searches after MSNBC's Rachel Maddow used it following the debate, the dictionary said.

'Shush'
In another attempt to stop Trump's interruptions, Biden asked, "Will he just shush for a minute?"

That word saw high searches following that question, and lookups spiked 28,900% Tuesday night, according to the dictionary.
Its definition?

"To urge to be quiet, to hush," according to the dictionary.

'Xenophobia'
Xenophobia "is the fear and hatred of strangers or foreigners or of anything that is strange or foreign," the dictionary says. Lookups for the word rose during the debate, according to the dictionary.

In the debate, Trump claimed Biden called him xenophobic for the travel restrictions his administration imposed at the start of the pandemic on foreign nationals who had been in China.

"I closed it, and you said, 'He's xenophobic. He's a racist and he's xenophobic,' because you didn't think I should have closed our country," Trump said.

It's unclear Biden knew about the restrictions in late January when he said Trump has a record of "hysterical xenophobia" and "fear mongering."

'Moderator'
Another term that saw high searches was "moderator." Lookups for the term spiked 3,500% on debate night, according to the dictionary, "for reasons that must remain between these searchers and their dictionary."

Tuesday night's moderator was Chris Wallace from Fox News, who tried several times to step in and quell arguing as well as restate the rules of the debate, and how much time each speaker was given.

That term has several definitions: "it may be 'one who presides over an assembly, meeting, or discussion' (as in the chair of a discussion group or the presiding officer of a town meeting), or 'one who arbitrates; a mediator' (this is sense that is relevant to tonight's debate ... we think, as it might also be 'a substance (such as graphite) used for slowing neutrons in a nuclear reactor')," the dictionary said. 

The next presidential debate is Thursday, October 15

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That presidential debate is what happens when you have Donald Trump in a debate moderated by a Fox 'News' moderator - Chris Wallace.

Maz (bluescope)

I am woman, <-- is there an app for that?

 

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