AP Photo/Charles Krupa
"Isn't it un-American and wrong to discriminate against people based on their religion?"
Trump replied with a long-winded but brilliantly structured one-minute answer. Evan Puschak, founder of NerdWriter, analyzed all 220 words and determined Trump's sentence structure and basic word choices give him a leg up on other presidential candidates when speaking to America.
Here's the answer, with key words highlighted by Puschak:
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The first thing to note, Puschak points out, is that Trump uses incredibly simple language and speaks at about a fourth-grade level, according to a Boston Globe study. Hillary Clinton, by comparison, speaks at about an eighth-grade level.
Of the 220 words Trump uses in his Kimmel answer, 172 (78%) are only one syllable long.
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To do this, Trump will go out of his way to speak in a way that isn't grammatically correct just so he can land on the right, punchy word. For example, instead of saying, "You can't solve the problem until you figure out what the root cause is," Trump told Kimmel, "You can't solve the problem until you figure out what's the root cause."
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Trump also tends to use simple sentences over independent clauses, Puschak says. And he talks directly to the audience, giving instructions like, "Look at what happened in Paris" so his words feel more personal.
"Like the best salesman, Trump keeps it simple," Puschak concludes.
Here's the full YouTube video breaking down Trump's one-minute answer by Puschak.