HE CHANTS SOMETIMES

While Hillary Clinton has spent 20 years being ridiculed as a robot, linguist Mark Liberman noted Donald Trump delivered an entire line in a perfect monotone. This month in Mannheim, Pa., he said, “We are going to make American great again” without deviating from a frequency of 238 Hz (about B flat on the keyboard). “I haven’t heard this type of chanting before from Mr. Trump, or indeed from any other political figure,” wrote Liberman, who studies intonation.