Helpinksi? White House commemorative coins from Trump-Putin Helsinki summit get a few things wrong
The White House clearly did not employ the services of a copy editor before releasing commemorative coins from Donald Trump’s summit with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Helsinki, which contain no less than three typos.
NPR business reporter Alina Selyukh, a Russian native, tweeted pictures of the grammatically botched coins, pointing out that the word ‘Helsinki’ itself was spelled incorrectly in Russian and actually read ‘Helpinski’.
Help? Maybe it’s some kind of coded message from the Trump administration? Surely there is a conspiracy theorist who could look into this immediately.
Got a chance to see the White House commemorative coin from Trump’s meeting with Putin in Helsinki. So far spotted 3 typos in the Russian inscriptions, including in the word “Helsinki.” pic.twitter.com/yhZapuL1sN
— Alina Selyukh (@alinaselyukh) November 5, 2018
There seems to actually be three mistakes, including incorrect grammar on the phrase “new era” and another very avoidable error on the word ‘Diplomatic’ which actually read “DDiplomatic.”
Never mind a Russian-speaking copy editor, even a quick run through Google Translate would probably have been enough to fix that one.
ХЕЛЬПИНСКИЙ (Helpinsky) instead of Хельсинский (Helsinsky) (adjective of Helsinki)НОВОЕ ЭРА (neuter adjective with feminine noun) instead of Новая эраДДипломатическая история (two “d”s at the beginning of the word) instead of Дипломатическая история
— Michele A. Berdy (@MicheleBerdy) November 6, 2018
No executive branch in the history of our great nation, has ever need a copy editor, more.The double д in “ддипломатичный” just hurts.Admittedly, the acronym for “Make Official Written Statements Grammatically Correct Again” doesn’t make for a strong hashtag or trucker’s cap.
— Todd Breasseale (@TBreassealeDHS) November 5, 2018
There's clearly a deliberate Trump strategy to troll eggheads by stupidly misspelling things, right? Even in Russian? Here we have "ddiplomacy", "Helpinsky", and the gender is wrong on "new era". https://t.co/kExtBsKURJ
— Matt Steinglass (@mattsteinglass) November 5, 2018
Twitter users were quick to make fun of the mistakes, noting that the beautiful city of ‘Helpinksi’ is a lovely place to visit at this time of year, particularly if you’re on a ‘ddiplomatic’ mission.
Beautiful Helpinski
— Jessica Shortall (@jessicashortall) November 5, 2018
I hear Helpinski is beautiful this time of year.
— Irina (@IrinaMikhale) November 5, 2018
We out to Helpinskiy on a ddiplomatic mission 😎 https://t.co/p62j4YBmO5
— Noah Sneider (@NoahSneider) November 5, 2018
But it wasn’t just accurate Russian spelling and grammar that eluded the coin designers. Selyukh also noticed that the inscribed Trump quote — “the past does not have to define our future” — actually comes from his meeting with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un a month earlier.
READ MORE: Writer-in-chief? Internet ‘pours over’ Trump Twitter typo
The typo-laden coins, which are part of the White House’s ‘Historic Moments’ series, can be yours for the reasonable price of $100. Also available for pre-order is ‘A Study In Genius — The Presidency of Donald J. Trump’ — if you have $175 to spare.
