Since this is not an article but a sandbox draft I don t know what to edit I ll edit it here Note You almost got it right but the subject of the article is not the term but the myth or shall we say controversy about the term The argument should be the subject Democrat Party is a term used in the United States instead of Democratic Party when referring to the Democratic National Committee There is an ongoing dispute about the origins of this shorthand term whether it is a natural shorthand expression or whether it is derogatory to the party A 1984 New York Times article suggested Republicans began to use the term when Democrats used their party name to infer they are the only true adherents of democracy 1 New Yorker commentator Hendrik Hertzberg wrote that the term is a slur intended to express contempt 2 He also stated that polling however indicated only deeply committed Democrats found the term offensive 2 Political analyst Charlie Cook attributed use of the term to force of habit rather than a deliberate epithet by Republicans 3 Ruth Marcus stated that Republicans likely only continue to employ the term because Democrats dislike it 2 Hertzberg and Marcus both state the use of the term is trivial 2 3 4 History of usage The earliest known use of the term according to the Oxford English Dictionary was by a London stock market analyst who wrote in 1890 Whether a little farmer from South Carolina named Tillman is going to rule the Democrat Party in America yet it is this and not output on which the proximate value of silver depends 5 William Safire in year wrote about the use of the term understood as a derogatory reference and attributed it to Thomas Dewey who he credits with this usage 6 The term gained popularity during the 1940 presidential campaign of Wendell Wilkie Wilkie s campaign manager Harold Stassen said regarding his use in the 1940s that because the Democratic Party was controlled by Hague in New Jersey Pendergast in Missouri and Kelly Nash in Chicago it should not be called a Democratic Party It should be called the Democrat Party 7 Do you see the difference All the way through the dispute about the term should be the subject of the article not whether it really means one thing or another Humbly offered 129 133 127 244