On 60 Minutes, Pelley used GOP-favored "Democrat leadership"

[RiverStone]

Media Matters
1/16/07

During his interview with President George W. Bush on the January 14 edition of CBS' 60 Minutes, CBS correspondent Scott Pelley twice used the word "Democrat" as an adjective -- "Democrat Party" and "Democrat plan" -- a usage that, as Media Matters for America has noted repeatedly, is one that originated with Republican operatives. Republicans consistently refer to the "Democrat Party," even though that is not what members of the Democratic Party call themselves, and use the noun "Democrat" as an adjective, which New Yorker magazine senior editor Hendrik Hertzberg identified as an attempt to deny the opposing party the claim to being "democratic," or as Hertzberg wrote, "to deny the enemy the positive connotations of its chosen appellation."

Hertzberg pointed out in an article for the August 7 issue of The New Yorker that the word "Democrat" is a noun, arguing that its use as an adjective defies the rules of English grammar:

The American Heritage College Dictionary, for example, defines the noun "Democratic Party" as "One of the two major US political parties, owing its origin to a split in the Democratic-Republican Party under Andrew Jackson in 1828." (It defines "Democrat n" as "A Democratic Party member" and "Democratic adj" as "Of, relating to, or characteristic of the Democratic Party," but gives no definition for -- indeed, makes no mention of -- "Democrat Party n" or "Democrat adj".) Other dictionaries, and reference works generally, appear to be unanimous on these points.

Hertzberg further noted:

There's no great mystery about the motives behind this deliberate misnaming. "Democrat Party" is a slur, or intended to be -- a handy way to express contempt. Aesthetic judgments are subjective, of course, but "Democrat Party" is jarring verging on ugly. It fairly screams "rat."

more:

http://mediamatters.org/items/200701160004?src=other

[kerry-is-my-prez]

1. Freakin' Barak Obama used it too the other day. That's my pet peeve.....

He went lower on my list because of it.

[CottonBear]

5. Randi Rhodes uses the term too. It makes me cringe. n/t

[cspanlovr]

2. What can possibly be said/done to make this stop?

[AndyA]

7. Perhaps Howard Dean could send out a letter or E-mail

letting everyone know they are incorrect when they use this term. There is no such thing as the "Democrat Party". It doesn't exist. For the sake of accuracy, they need to make sure to use the correct word.

Maybe they'd pay attention to Dean. Bush needs to get that letter especially, although in his case he's simply too stupid to know any better. All those dead brain cells from too much coke and booze. (Sounds like a Willie Nelson song, don't it?)

[KansDem]

10. Send everyone who uses it an Oxford English Dictionary...

Oh, hell! That would be too expensive...

Here, send them this:

From wordnet.princeton.edu

"Democratic"
Adjective
S: (adj) Democratic (belong to or relating to the Democratic Party) "Democratic senator"

[EndElectoral]

3. Great catch...WHy would Pelley do that??

[samfishX]

6. Probably because

he's nothing more than a GOP shill.

...Like so many others are in the "liberal" media.

[CottonBear]

4. The local AM (RW) news radio station uses the term as does Rep. Kingston of GA.

I've called Kingston's office to complain after he used the term repeatedly on CSPAN WJ one morning last year. I'm going to have to place a call to the AM rasio station becuase today the radio host referred to a "Democrat town hall meeting" which is being held tonight by two Democratic state reps.
:grr:

[LSparkle]

8. We need to keep calling out people when they use the word "Democrat"

instead of "Democratic" -- even when it's Democrats who are doing it. People representing our side on talk/pundit shows (TV and radio) ought to correct ANYONE who uses "Democrat" as an adjective (the same way you'd correct your child if he/she used the word "ain't" instead of "isn't").

[Igel]

9. People should use "Democratic" because that's the party's name.

They shouldn't make counterfactual arguments to try to buttress an already sufficient argument. It's especially bad when a wordsmith shows he doesn't understand the structure of his own language, getting caught up in the dogmatic application of elementary school grammar. (Oh, damn, I just said something outrageously ungrammatical.)

Cognitive linguists (at least some) call it coercion, where a word's grammatical/semantic features are derived from what its syntactic function must be. As when I wrote "(elementary school) grammar", or mediamatters said "((New Yorker) Magazine) senior editor". They're like "(apple) pie" or "(computer) science". I put brackets around each (noun). Stress and intonation support their interpretation as adjectives.

If Hertzberg is right, "New Yorker Magazine senior editor" sounds as bad to native speakers as "really models dress fashionable". It doesn't. Hertzberg's wrong, even accounting for some dialects' avoidance of adverbs in -ly (I don't know if not using adverbs in -ly in those dialects is historical or innovated).

As for the implied slight in denying 'Democratic Party' the word 'democratic', wasn't the point of calling it the "Democratic Party" to imply that the *other* party isn't *really* democratic? That argument cuts both ways, and it may be that Hertzberg is confusing aesthetics with politics. But there are a couple of other problems: (1) We try to avoid ambiguity when it could reflect on us (although I will say I found a recent DU post that the person "had a desire to bare children" humorous, if accidental). It's what drove "gay" (= merry) out of circulation so quickly. It's why Gypsies prefer to be called Roma these days. Using an ambiguous phrase that might imply that you're not democratic is going to be avoided; nobody likes to beat themselves over the head. We also (2) tend to avoid coining a new word when there's one that's already in circulation doing the job. For some, since "Democratic Party" is ambiguous or simply untrue, they need a phrase for the party of Democrats: "Democrat Party" is what English grammar provides. Dems would find this offensive; on the first count, because it denies their equation (Democratic Party = democratic party), and on the second count because it's a neologism for a pre-existing phrase. (It also denies them their own naming rights, a third reason for offense.)