Is it a little odd that Republican is the same as a noun and an adjective while Democrat (n.) and Democratic (adj.) are different? Sure -- English is rife with such inconsistencies. Is it a little unfortunate that one party's adjective, when lowercased, has warmer and fuzzier connotations than the other's? Perhaps.
But . . . tough. That's the way it is. There was a time when the -icless adjective might have been read as an attempt at linguistic correction. Today, it is bound to be read as a show of solidarity with Republican propagandists. Use of the big-D word doesn't mean that the big-R people aren't interested in democracy, and use of the big-R word doesn't mean that the big-D people are enemies of our republic.
7 comments:
Nothing inherent, but the fact is that the Rush Limbaugh/Sean Hannity set has chosen over the past several years to adopt "Democrat Party" and the like as standard taunting phrases.
It's actually something that goes back, I think, to the Reagan era and is a conscious propaganda ploy used by the Republican Party. Hendrik Hertzberg just wrote about this very phenomenon in the August 7th issue of The New Yorker. The link to it is: http://www.newyorker.com/talk/content/articles/060807ta_talk_hertzberg
Or I can try linking it thus wise: Hertzberg Comment
I'd feel sheepish about this coincidence, but I did mention the issue in "Lapsing Into a Comma" (2000).
I do feel sheepish about those New Yorkers that pile up without the full attention they deserve.
The liberal watchdog group Media Matters attempted to document and quantify this. Here's the link to the findings:
http://mediamatters.org/items/200608160005
The distressing part, of course, is when you discover your journalism students have already adopted this language -- and are crossing out the "ic" from perfectly good copy. Sort of like the science fiction fungus that slowly entwines the brain.
One useful form, however, is Democrat-controlled (as in controlled by Democrats), n'est pas?
I've wrestled with phrases like "Democrat-controlled," but I think you still want the adjectival form -- Democratic-controlled, just as it'd be French-controlled rather than France-controlled. (Similar questions come up with "female" vs. "woman/women.")
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