Does this mean Rush Limbaugh hates America???

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Originally Posted by Lord Winter

and the point of this grammer lesson is?

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Ask the people who refuse to use the language correctly.

The whole lot should be turned out and each one replaced by one of their constituents selected at random from the list of registered voters.

Most of these folks, being regular people, would simply gasp -- responding as they would if it were their own checkbooks -- and lop about half of the federal budget off.

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Originally Posted by Lemur

Do we need to go over the difference between an adjective and a noun again?

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No, but apparently we need to go over proper nouns with you. :dizzy2:

Congrats to Michael Steele. First step in the right direction for the G.O.P. in a while.

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Originally Posted by Xiahou

No, but apparently we need to go over proper nouns with you. :dizzy2:

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If you're going to base your argument on proper nouns then you're still wrong. If the Dems choose to call themselves "Democratic," thus correctly mirroring the word's usage when placed as an adjective, who are you to amend them? What a person or group choose to call themselves is their business, surely, and not really the province of their sworn ideological foes.

You're wrong on grammar, wrong on usage, wrong on courtesy, and wrong when you frame the argument in a way that you mistakenly think is in your favor. I find it quite amazing that you're sticking to your guns on this one. If you are incapable of admitting a simple grammatical error ...

-edit-

I see Wikipedia has an entire article about your verbal tic.

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Found another article about your pet malapropism.

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. [...] “Democrat Party” is standard jargon on right-wing talk radio and common on winger Web sites like NewsMax.com, which blue-pencils Associated Press dispatches to de-“ic” references to the Party of F.D.R. and J.F.K. (The resulting impression that “Democrat Party” is O.K. with the A.P. is as phony as a North Korean travel brochure.) The respectable conservative journals of opinion sprinkle the phrase around their Web sites but go light on it in their print editions. William F. Buckley, Jr., the Miss Manners cum Dr. Johnson of modern conservatism, dealt with the question in a 2000 column in National Review, the magazine he had founded forty-five years before. “I have an aversion to ‘Democrat’ as an adjective,” Buckley began.

Dear Joe McCarthy used to do that, and received a rebuke from this at-the-time 24-year-old. It has the effect of injecting politics into language, and that should be avoided. Granted there are diffculties, as when one desires to describe a “democratic” politician, and is jolted by possible ambiguity. But English does that to us all the time, and it’s our job to get the correct meaning transmitted without contorting the language.

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Originally Posted by Seamus Fermanagh

The whole lot should be turned out and each one replaced by one of their constituents selected at random from the list of registered voters.

Most of these folks, being regular people, would simply gasp -- responding as they would if it were their own checkbooks -- and lop about half of the federal budget off.

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Rofl.

Right on.

Errr, I mean: Commie.

:laugh4:

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Originally Posted by Lemur

If you're going to base your argument on proper nouns then you're still wrong. If the Dems choose to call themselves "Democratic," thus correctly mirroring the word's usage when placed as an adjective, who are you to amend them? What a person or group choose to call themselves is their business, surely, and not really the province of their sworn ideological foes.

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They can call themselves whatever they want. Republican Party Members call themselves Republicans; Green Party, Greens; Libertarian Party, Libertarians; Communist Party, Communists. Democratic Party, Democrats? :inquisitive:

Again, they can call themselves whatever they want. And I'll do the same. :wink:

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You're wrong on grammar, wrong on usage, wrong on courtesy, and wrong when you frame the argument in a way that you mistakenly think is in your favor. I find it quite amazing that you're sticking to your guns on this one. If you are incapable of admitting a simple grammatical error ...

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It's not a grammatical error. Aside from it being a proper noun, nouns are used together that way all the time. Have you ever been to a 'grocery store' or ridden a 'mountain bike'? Honestly, read your own links:

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Originally Posted by Wiki

Using a noun as a modifier of another noun is not, strictly speaking, grammatically incorrect in modern English in the formation of a compound noun, e.g. "shoe store," "school bus," "peace movement," "Senate election," etc. Americans commonly speak of "the Iraq war" rather than "the Iraqi war."

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Also, from your own links:

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Originally Posted by New Yorker

Luntz, who road-tested the adjectival use of “Democrat” with a focus group in 2001, has concluded that the only people who really dislike it are highly partisan adherents of the—how you say?—Democratic Party. “Those two letters actually do matter,” Luntz said the other day.

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You seem to be the only backroomer upset by this issue, so read into it what you will. Who else would get so upset about someone slightly altering the name of a party other than the party faithful? :laugh4:

PS: Free to make up and use any silly names you can think of for Republicans, I won't mind. :2thumbsup:

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Originally Posted by Lemur

If you're going to base your argument on proper nouns then you're still wrong. If the Dems choose to call themselves "Democratic," thus correctly mirroring the word's usage when placed as an adjective, who are you to amend them? What a person or group choose to call themselves is their business, surely, and not really the province of their sworn ideological foes.

You're wrong on grammar, wrong on usage, wrong on courtesy, and wrong when you frame the argument in a way that you mistakenly think is in your favor. I find it quite amazing that you're sticking to your guns on this one. If you are incapable of admitting a simple grammatical error ...

-edit-

I see Wikipedia has an entire article about your verbal tic.

-edit-

Found another article about your pet malapropism.

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. [...] “Democrat Party” is standard jargon on right-wing talk radio and common on winger Web sites like NewsMax.com, which blue-pencils Associated Press dispatches to de-“ic” references to the Party of F.D.R. and J.F.K. (The resulting impression that “Democrat Party” is O.K. with the A.P. is as phony as a North Korean travel brochure.) The respectable conservative journals of opinion sprinkle the phrase around their Web sites but go light on it in their print editions. William F. Buckley, Jr., the Miss Manners cum Dr. Johnson of modern conservatism, dealt with the question in a 2000 column in National Review, the magazine he had founded forty-five years before. “I have an aversion to ‘Democrat’ as an adjective,” Buckley began.

Dear Joe McCarthy used to do that, and received a rebuke from this at-the-time 24-year-old. It has the effect of injecting politics into language, and that should be avoided. Granted there are diffculties, as when one desires to describe a “democratic” politician, and is jolted by possible ambiguity. But English does that to us all the time, and it’s our job to get the correct meaning transmitted without contorting the language.

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All this fuss over an innocent flub?!? I even went back and changed my original post! I think you got a wee bit carried away over this one... as in carried downstream, over the falls, through the rapids, out to sea and into the belly of one of the there sea serpents that prey on ships near the edge of the world... :dizzy2:

Obama's new definition of "bipartisanship" is "agreeing with us".

Isn't that every governments definition of bipartisanship ?

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Originally Posted by Spino

All this fuss over an innocent flub?!?

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Obviously, Spino dear, I'm not reacting to your transient slip, but rather to the dogged defenders of bad grammar and usage. It's one thing to make a simple mistake, and quite another to defend it no matter how obviously wrong it is.

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Originally Posted by Xiahou

Again, they can call themselves whatever they want. And I'll do the same.

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Thus branding yourself as a man who disrespects the English language and has no manners to boot. Congratulations!

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Originally Posted by Xiahou

Honestly, read your own links:

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I read them. Did you?

"Democrat Party is a political epithet used in the United States by some people instead of the name (or more precisely, the proper noun) Democratic Party."

"The use of the term is an attempt to separate the people that make up the party from the principle outlined in their name. It stems from the notion that a collection of Democrats is not necessarily a democratic collection. However, the moniker of 'Democrat' is derived from 'Democratic Party' and not vice-versa so the construction in this fashion is not proper."

"In August 2008, the Republican platform committee voted down a proposal to use the phrase 'Democrat Party' in the 2008 platform, deciding to use the proper 'Democratic Party'. 'We probably should use what the actual name is,' said Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour, the panel's chairman."

"Democratic Party, however, is a proper noun."

So you're placing your grammatical errors and ill-usage of the English language above the Republican party platform, and above the judgment of William F. Buckley, the founder of the magazine which you worship. From a man who might know a bit more about language and usage than you ever will:

I have an aversion to ‘Democrat’ as an adjective. Dear Joe McCarthy used to do that, and received a rebuke from this at-the-time 24-year-old. It has the effect of injecting politics into language, and that should be avoided.

So let's recap: You're wrong on points of grammar and (more importantly) usage, you're wrong on courtesy (since it is polite to call people and groups by their preferred name, unless there is some overriding reason to do otherwise), and the very links you point to demonstrate that your abuse of the language is a signature of extreme rightwing hacks.

And doubtless all of this will bounce off you like logic off a Communist, and you'll continue to doggedly assert that your neologism is fantastically correct, despite the fact that you have nothing, nothing to back your position up.

Tell you what, take it to PM if you want to continue defending your lost position. Or start a new thread if you really can't let it go.

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Originally Posted by Xiahou

PS: Free to make up and use any silly names you can think of for Republicans, I won't mind.

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Typical authoritarian logic. "Oh, am I abusing the language? Well why don't you just abuse it in equal measure, and then we can all be brothers in disrespect and NewSpeak."

I propose we resolve to call 'em 'crats 'n 'pubs. Yanno, single-syllable monikers like the Jets and Sharks, and we can all enjoy the knife-fight ballets ala West Side Story.

You're never alone,
You're never disconnected!
You're home with your own:
When company's expected,
You're well protected!

:)

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Originally Posted by KukriKhan

I propose we resolve to call 'em 'crats 'n 'pubs. Yanno, single-syllable monikers like the Jets and Sharks, and we can all enjoy the knife-fight ballets ala West Side Story.

You're never alone,
You're never disconnected!
You're home with your own:
When company's expected,
You're well protected!

:)

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Works for me. :2thumbsup:

Lemur, you seem to be missing the point. I couldn't care less if the partisan Democrat hacks get upset when someone tweaks their name. Distortion of an organization's name is a common humorous device whether you're doing it to a sports team, PETA, or a political party.

The only thing I take issue with is the red herring "grammar" defense. It fails in two ways. First, as a proper noun the rules you think apply don't. Second, the rules you think apply don't apply in practice either. I asked if you read your links, because the Wikipedia article explains that. I even provided an additional link that explains the use of nouns as adjectives. Here, take another look.

It's not grammatically unsound by any means. All you're left with is that it bothers you- that's fine. Lot's of things bother people and if all you have to get in a tizzy over is someone dropping two letters of the name of your party, you're doing ok. :yes:

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Originally Posted by Xiahou

Distortion of an organization's name is a common humorous device whether you're doing it to a sports team, PETA, or a political party.

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Once again demonstrating that you do not understand basic manners.

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Originally Posted by Xiahou

First, as a proper noun the rules you think apply don't.

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You're still utterly wrong. The proper noun in this case is "Democratic Party," so by your own tortured logic, you should be referring to Democrats as "Democratics," not the Democratic Party as the "Democrat Party." Once again, fail.

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Originally Posted by Xiahou

I even provided an additional link that explains the use of nouns as adjectives. Here, take another look.

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If you're going to base your twisting of the English language on declaring that Democrat is a proper noun, then your banging on the noun-as-adjective log is irrelevant anyway. Make up your mind on which excuse you're going to cling to.

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Originally Posted by Xiahou

Lot's of things bother people

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I see you aren't entirely clear on the proper use of apostrophes, either.

As for your various, "Oh, you care about proper usage, you must be a partisan shill," asides, they really are beneath response. Nothing says "I can't defend my own bad English" like trolling.

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Originally Posted by Xiahou

All you're left with is that it bothers you- that's fine.

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No, once again, fail. It bothers me and anybody who cares about proper usage, such as William F. Buckley (whose thoughts on this issue you've scrupulously avoided addressing) and the Republican Party (whose position on this issue you've danced around). Frankly, I think your continued insistence on a malapropism is amazing, nothing short of amazing.

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Originally Posted by Lemur

As for your various, "Oh, you care about proper usage, you must be a partisan shill," asides, they really are beneath response. Nothing says "I can't defend my own bad English" like trolling.

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hotlinked picture removed

Isn't it funny to see Americans having a dispute about proper usage of the English language when as a nation they use a bastardised version of the language .

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Originally Posted by Tribesman

Isn't it funny to see Americans having a dispute about proper usage of the English language when as a nation they use a bastardised version of the language .

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Sorry, but it's those UK'ers who're the ones who failed to keep up with a developing language -- we just let them continue to call it "English" as our sole contribution to the Special Relationship.

If they keep falling behind, it'll all be like one massive gaeltacht wherein only the locals can speak to one another....or care to do so.'''



:smartass2:

Well, I see the arguments have degenerated into semantics over word usage now.

It is only right I suppose.

Considering the numbers of degenerents likely to frequent a place like this.

:laugh4::laugh4:

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Originally Posted by Fisherking

Well, I see the arguments have degenerated into semantics over word usage now.

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Only in Grammerica. It is part of our founding participles.