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By CHRISTOPHER LEE / The Dallas Morning News

WASHINGTON � Republicans have called Democrats a lot of names through the years: "Do-gooders," "Liberals" even "Socialists."

But one rhetorical poke in the eye has stuck in a way that presents challenges for President Bush if he hopes to fulfill his campaign pledge to "change the tone" in Washington and put partisan sniping to rest.

The offending habit, as far as Democrats are concerned, is Capitol Hill Republicans' practice of chopping the word "Democratic" down to "Democrat" at times when grammar calls for the former to be used.

House Majority Leader Dick Armey showed how it's done recently when he took to the House floor to dismiss Democratic complaints that the $1.35 trillion tax cut would wreck the budget.

"I am worried about the left wing of the Democrat Party," the Flower Mound Republican said. "I think they are losing it."

Another fan of the term is House Majority Whip Tom DeLay, R-Sugar Land. In a May 3 speech Mr. DeLay said that "the Democrat leadership spends every waking hour scheming to stop the Bush administration and our common-sense coalition from delivering [tax] relief to you."

The phrase "Democrat leadership" appears 10 times in a five-paragraph transcript of his remarks.

Ungrammatical use of the word "Democrat" is such a little thing that a casual observer might miss it, or write it off to an oratorical slip, if heard just once or twice. But repeated over and over, it sounds both juvenile and annoying, Democrats say, like someone intentionally mispronouncing your name long after the joke has ceased to be funny.

"I ignore them," said Rep. Eddie Bernice Johnson, D-Dallas. "I think they do it to insult. They use that word because they figure it irritates us. It's an in-your-face thing, which to me depicts smallness."

Jenny Backus, spokeswoman for the Democratic National Committee, said Republicans' taunt "comes across as a bit of a cheap shot." It also flies in the face of Mr. Bush's campaign pledge to soften the partisan jabbing in Washington, she said, and he should ask them to stop.

"If they really want to change the tone in Washington and be more bipartisan, then I think they should respect what our party calls itself, which is the Democratic Party," Ms. Backus said.

White House spokeswoman Claire Buchan said the president is open to ideas to reduce the rancor.

"The president is committed to increasing civility here," she said.

Republicans who use the term make no apologies, however, saying the Democratic Party is anything but democratic.

" 'Democratic' to me is an adjective, and they are not democratic in the way they do business," Mr. Armey said. "They are autocratic in the way they do business. I was in the minority here for 10 years. I learned that lesson the hard way."

Political historians attribute the first use of the slight to Thomas A. Dewey, the 1948 Republican presidential nominee, according to The New Language of Politics, a 1972 book by William Safire. Republican National Committee Chairman Leonard Hall picked up the term in 1955, saying: "I think their claims that they represent the great mass of people, and we don't, is just a lot of bunk."

Some Democrats wanted to strike back by shortening Republican to "Publican," according to Mr. Safire, now a columnist for The New York Times. But party leaders vetoed the idea because, they said, Republican "is the name by which our opponents' product is known and mistrusted."

Texas Sen. Phil Gramm, who switched to the Republican Party in 1983, shows little sympathy for Democrats' complaints.

"I'm willing to call them anything," Mr. Gramm joked. "Whatever they want to be called � 'sweetheart,' 'darlin',' the 'Great American Party,' I don't know. I'm easy. We know who they are whatever you call them. A rose is still a rose."

While the issue may seem trivial, it is symbolically � and grammatically � important, said Kathleen Hall Jamieson, dean of the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Pennsylvania.

"People are entitled to define themselves and attach their own label to themselves. And the official label of that party historically has been, 'The Democratic Party,' " Dr. Jamieson said. "And 'Democrat' is not an adjective. 'Democrat Party' puts two nouns together, which at best is inelegant and at worst a gratuitous insult.

"In a whole list of the grievances in Washington, you'd probably put it at the low end of the scale. On the other hand, if you said you wanted to change the tone in Washington, part of the way you would change the tone is you would talk differently," she said.

Mr. Bush told a Colorado audience Aug. 14 that he's trying. At the start of his term, he said, he was "deeply concerned about the bitterness that seemed to be in every other voice" in Washington.

"One of the things I pledged to do was to at least try to change the tone, try to say if you don't happen to agree with somebody, you can disagree in an agreeable way. That party is important but it's not paramount. What's more important is the country. And I believe we're making good progress."

Some habits die hard, though.

Rep. Lamar Smith, R-San Antonio, said he understands why GOP colleagues deride opponents as the 'Democrat Party,' but for the sake of grammar, he does not do it.

As for whether Mr. Bush could prompt a change, "I think Republicans are going to do what they want to," Mr. Smith said. "Democrats have called Republicans worse names, let me tell you."

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