Using "Democrat" as an adjective

[slickpoppa]

I have noticed a trend of many posters using the word "Democrat" as an adjective (instead of "Democratic"). This post is a perfect example: link ("I like Nixon. As a president he was better than most democrat presidents.")

I have seen this way too many times for it to be an accident. The fact that the only posters who do it are ones who clearly don't like Democrats leads me to believe that it is supposed to be some kind of insult. If this is supposed to be some kind of insult, it is incredibly juvenile and assinine. Let's try to elevate the already low level of discourse in here and cut out crap like this.

[Dynasty]

The next thing you know some Republican will come along and start talking about "democrat wars". <font color="white">That's my way of letting you know this usage has been around a long time- possibly longer than you've been alive? </font>

[DVaut1]

[ QUOTE ]
The next thing you know some Republican will come along and start talking about "democrat wars". <font color="white">That's my way of letting you know this usage has been around a long time- possibly longer than you've been alive? </font>

[/ QUOTE ]

Bob Dole doesn't know what you're talking about, Dynasty.

To the OP: Using "Democrat" instead of "Democratic" has, as Dynasty notes, been used for decades; however, Frank Luntz empirically demonstrated that voters respond more negatively to "Democrat" than "Democratic" -- hence the right wing's strategic use of it.

I'm guessing the posters here are just taking cues from their favorite right-wing mouth piece(s), which is why you see it frequently here.

[andyfox]

"voters respond more negatively to 'Democrat' than 'Democratic'

No doubt. Democratic can be confused with democratic, and we all like democracy. But Democrat had the same feel as bureaucrat.

[roueful]

The example in the op isn't an adjective, it's still a noun. "Democrat President" is a compound noun phrase, like 'the Africa report' or 'the poker site'.

Are members of the Democratic Party "Democratics"?

[slickpoppa]

[ QUOTE ]
Are members of the Democratic Party "Democratics"?

[/ QUOTE ]

No, "Democrat" is a noun, therefore members of the Democratic party are Democrats. It is not complicated.

[TomCollins]

So if someone is a frog, and also president, you can say that someone is the worst frog president we've had. Frog is still a noun.

[slickpoppa]

[ QUOTE ]
So if someone is a frog, and also president, you can say that someone is the worst frog president we've had. Frog is still a noun.

[/ QUOTE ]

Some nouns can be used as an adjective because there is no form of the word that is used as an adjective. However, Democrat is not one of those words because Democratic is clearly the proper adjective to use.

[slickpoppa]

From the Columbia Guide to Standard American English:

"Democrat (adj., n.), Democratic (adj.):
The proper noun is the name of a member of a major American political party; the adjective Democratic is used in its official name, the Democratic party. Democrat as an adjective is still sometimes used by some twentieth-century Republicans as a campaign tool but was used with particular virulence by the late senator Joseph R. McCarthy of Wisconsin, a Republican who sought by repeatedly calling it the Democrat party to deny it any possible benefit of the suggestion that it might also be democratic."

link

Stop trying to rationalize this as something other than a petty politcical tool.