A Linguistic Guide to Donald Trump's Scatological Insults

Did Donald Trump use the word shithole when referring to African countries in a meeting with lawmakers on immigration policy, or did he actually say shithouse? These are the scatological depths to which our political discourse has sunk.

Let’s stipulate that regardless of whether Trump said or , it does little to change the underlying racist sentiment of disparaging the whole continent of Africa (and Haiti and El Salvador as well, according to some accounts). But just as it’s possible to , we can observe how the word has been put