
Speaking style
Harding was notorious for his verbal gaffes, such as his comment "I
would like the government to do all it can to mitigate, then, in
understanding, in mutuality of interest, in concern for the common
good, our tasks will be solved." His errors were compounded
by his insistence on writing his own speeches. Although it might
not have been a mispronunciation as some thought, Harding's most
famous "mistake" was his use of the word "normalcy" when
the more normal word to use at the time would have been "normality." Harding
decided he liked the sound of the word and made "Return to Normalcy" a
recurring theme. Critic H.L. Mencken disagreed, saying of Harding, "He
writes the worst English that I have ever encountered. It reminds
me of a string of wet sponges; it reminds me of tattered washing
on the line; it reminds me of stale bean soup, of college yells,
of dogs barking idiotically through endless nights. It is so bad
that a sort of grandeur creeps into it. It drags itself out of the
dark abysm of pish, and crawls insanely up the topmost pinnacle of
posh. It is rumble and bumble. It is flap and doodle. It is balder
and dash." Mencken also coined the term "Gamalielese" to
refer to Harding's distinctive style of speech. Upon Harding's death,
poet E.E. Cummings said "The only man, woman or child who wrote
a simple declarative sentence with seven grammatical errors is dead."
Trivia
Harding is the only US president to be elected on his birthday, November
2 (it was his 55th).
He was the first newspaper publisher to be elected president.
Both of Harding's parents were doctors.
He suffered nervous breakdowns at the age of 24 and had to spend
some time in a sanitarium.
One of his sisters was a Washington, D.C. policewoman.
Harding was the first president to ride to his inauguration in an
automobile.
He was the first president to own a radio and the first to speak
over the radio airwaves.
Harding was the first president to visit Canada and Alaska.
While president, Harding played golf, poker twice a week, followed
baseball and boxing, and sneaked off to burlesque shows. His advisors
were known as the "Poker Cabinet" because they all played
poker together.
Harding wore size fourteen shoes. He had the largest feet of the
presidents.
Harding was the first president to be survived by his father.
Other interesting notes about Harding from the New York Times.
The 1920 presidential election was the only presidential election
in which the two major party nominees were office holders from the
same state, Ohio (Harding was a US senator; Cox was governor), and
had the same profession (newspaper publishers—Harding in Marion
and Cox in Dayton).
Harding was known to host poker games at the White House; legend
has it that Harding once lost a set of White House China once belonging
to President Benjamin Harrison, however White House historians have
debunked that myth.
Norman Thomas, founder of the American Civil Liberties Union and
Socialist Party candidate for president, held a childhood job as
a newsboy for Harding's Marion Daily Star where he was supervised
by Florence Harding.
Harding County, New Mexico is named in his honor.
President Harding and his wife both appear in fictional form as supporting
characters in the novel Carter Beats the Devil by Glen David Gold.
Charles Joseph Carter (also known as Carter the Great) was a famous
stage magician in the early part of the 1900s, and the book offers
an alternate explanation for the death of Warren Harding.
The Hardings also figure in Gore Vidal's 1990 novel Hollywood.
He was the first president born after the end of the American Civil
War.