Premise: “Using a noun as a modifier is not grammatically incorrect in modern English.”
According to a number of people you cannot use democrat as a noun modifier, particularly, democrat candidate. Yet, is seems democrat bill, democrat logo, democrat motion, etc., seem to be used more frequently than with the adjective democratic.
I think democrat party is probably incorrect since the party is called the Democratic Party.
It has also been argued that you don’t use a noun modifier when a “suitable” adjective is available. However, there a many, many examples where this doesn’t appear to be true: golf ball, truck driver, peace talks, farm worker, ski lodge, etc.
Any ideas on this? When can’t a noun be used as a modifier, outside of not making sense? Any examples?
“The ungrammatical conversion of the noun “Democrat” to an adjective was the brainchild of Republican partisans, presumably an attempt to deny the opposing party the claim to being “democratic” – or in the words of New Yorker magazine senior editor Hendrik Hertzberg, “to deny the enemy the positive connotations of its chosen appellation.” In the early 1990s, apparently due largely to the urging of then-House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-GA) and Republican pollster Frank Luntz, the use of the word “Democrat” as an adjective became near-universal among Republicans.”
Actually, you’re wrong. In the early 1990s, Frank Luntz, an infamous Republican pollster and operative, tested the use of various political terminology. Luntz found that the term “Democrat” (as in Democrat Party) was more effective in defining the opposition as being somehow undesirable than was “Democratic.” Newt Gingrich really started putting the term in wider circulation. You’ll also find that it is in common use among many Republicans, not so among Democrats. I’m surprised that so many people first noticed it in the State of the Union address this year.
The term is older than that, of course. Joe McCarthy used to use the phrase Democrat Party, too.
The main opposition party here in Thailand is called the Democrat Party. It’s actually the oldest political party here and has fielded a number of prime ministers. I used to get confused between the Democratic Party in the US and the Democrat Party in Thailand. Took some getting used to.
The proper adjectival form is “Democratic” with a capital letter and the “ic”:
Democratic candidate
Democratic logo
Democratic bill
Democratic reforms
Democratic impeachment initiative
etc.
The word “democratic” with a lower-case “d” refers to the political philosophy, not the political party.
That’s because it’s a coalition of “New Democrats” who are a particular movement within the Democratic Party. So they’re using the entire phrase “New Democrat” as an adjective for clarity.
Any reference for this, that the adjectival form takes precedence over the noun modifier form? It would really help.
Plus, the noun modifier form of democrat bill, democrat motion, democrat logo, etc., appear to be used more often than the adjectival form based on simplistic searches on Google.
A “Democrat” is a member of the Democratic Party. Thus, “New Democrat Coalition” is a coalition of members of the Democratic Party.
“Democratic” started as an adjective; the party was originally called “Democratic Republicans.” “Republican” was dropped around the time of Andrew Jackson and the party was left with an adjectival noun as a name.
Calling it the “Democrat Party” is no different from calling Bush’s party “The Asshole Party.” In neither case are you using the correct form of the name, and the purpose is merely to make the target look bad. It’s wrong in both instances.
My father and his brothers were life-long and die-hard Republicans, and in no way were they assholes. They were all the salt of the earth. I take exception to you ignorant assertion.
I think this is so because, although the term had been used regularly by patisan attack dogs like Gingrich and the talking heads, it had been seen as below the presidency. No longer.
I’d like to know when it was first used by Bush in a formal speech.
You are correct, and my apologies to RealityChuck. One gets so used to seeing Republicans jumped on that one gets gun shy. My bleary eyes at 3am here missed that last part completely.
I also wanted to add and forgot … if the adjectival is proper, by some standard and use of capitalization, versus the noun modifier form, how do we reconcile the common use of the terms Iraq War and Vietnam War?
The Republicans use the phrase Democrat Party with the intent to demean our party in a subtle way. They’ll say there’s no harm in it, but the polling mentioned above shows that people think less of us when they drop the “ic.”
To reply by calling their party Repooplicans or the Asshole Party is to go overboard. Fight subtle with subtle. They lopped off our two letters, we’ll lop off two of theirs. They are the Publican Party. There, Siam Sam, I didn’t call your father and your uncles assholes. I called them Publicans, or as we say in these parts, Bartenders.
