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Reader question: Please explain “prime the pump” in the following passages (FACT CHECK: No, Trump didn’t invent ‘prime the pump’, Associated Press, May 11, 2017): President Donald Trump took credit in an interview for coining the phrase “prime the pump,” seemingly unaware that it was popularized during the Great Depression more than 80 years ago and has been used frequently ever since. “I came up with it a couple of days ago and I thought it was good,” Trump told “The Economist” magazine in an interview published Thursday. The interviewers refrained from correcting the president about a well-worn metaphor for generating faster growth. My comments: US President Donald again invited ridicule when he told The Economist that he invented the phrase “prime the pump”. Not only that, he even asked the reporter from The Economist, a weekly magazine known for its in-depth analysis and good writing in general, whether he had heard of the phrase. The reporter acknowledged that he had heard of the expression without contradicting or correcting Trump. Being British (plus Trump being Trump), The Economist would not deign to contradict or correct him even if the US President claimed that he wrote Shakespeare, I’m afraid, or that he invented the English language itself. The Associated Press, on the other hand, feels no need to explain the phrase in its Fact Check because it is a “well-worn metaphor”. | 
