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"particular hype and hate"



The Justice Department's bill of indictment against various Russians who are alleged to have worked to influence the 2016 election includes some of the posts they supposedly made on social media outlets.

 Today, I'd like to talk a bit about one of them, an Instagram post. It reads in relevant part, 

 "[A] particular hype and hatred for Trump is misleading the people and forcing Blacks to vote Killary." 

 The use of "Killary" was the result of accurate research.  Trump's hardcore supporters used it often to suggest that Hillary Clinton was a killer --  a charge going back at least to the discovery of Vince Foster's body in July of 1993. 

 The phrase "particular hype and hatred" seems odd, though. The intended meaning presumably is "certain lies by hateful people directed at Trump are misleading the people" etc. But it takes some time to figure that out. 

 After all, in English "hype" does not necessarily refer to lies or even have a negative connotation. If someone says "the real estate developer was really hyping the scenic beauty of southwestern Colorado in that meeting" -- what does one mean? That SW Colorado isn't really beautiful? that the developer is lying? 

 No. In my example the speaker may be saying that the developer was over-stressing the scenic issue, even that he was trying to avoid other issues that do or don't make a particular property desirable. But the implication is that he was doing his job, and our statement allows at least for the possibility that the developer is honest. 

 In other words, "hype" is a word that is at the worst ambivalent, whereas the valence of "hatred" is strongly negative. This "particular hype and hatred" sounds like an effort to coin a phrase in a way that an native speaker of English would, by someone who isn't a native or even a particular adept speaker.  

 What does it matter? Well, I suppose one might take some comfort in that degree to which Russian interference in US politics remains quite clumsy. And no, I don't believe it was successful -- the electoral votes would have come out in Trump's favor even without these manglers of English. They might even serve as comic relief within the tragedy. 
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