Heidi and I actually got into a bit of a debate about what I wrote on “Democrat” vs. “Democratic,” and I think we reached a consensus on what the key issue actually is. The issue isn’t the grammar per se, but the fact that it’s childish and disrespectful to intentionally get someone or something’s name wrong. We both agreed on that, though we disagreed about the importance of the grammatical point I was making. Since Heidi’s the English teacher, a push equals a win for her. As I said, though, if it were a simple question of grammar, I wouldn’t even mention it.

Instead, I’m talking about stuff like this:

Some far-right sites that subscribe to the Associated Press feed, for example, will use auto-correct to change “Democratic Party” to “Democrat Party.” This, of course, is because they have the temperament of children.

Seriously, what other explanation is there to rename the party? Of course, this obsession with controlling language can lead to funny situations:

But the American Family Association’s OneNewsNow website takes the phenomenon one step further with its AP articles. The far-right fundamentalist group replaces the word “gay” in the articles with the word “homosexual.” I’m not entirely sure why, but it seems to make the AFA happy. The group is, after all, pretty far out there.

The problem, of course, is that “gay” does not always mean what the AFA wants it to mean. My friend Kyle reported this morning that sprinter Tyson Gay won the 100 meters at the U.S. Olympic track and field trials over the weekend. The AFA ran the story, but only after the auto-correct had “fixed” the article.

That means — you guessed it — the track star was renamed “Tyson Homosexual.” The headline on the piece read, “Homosexual eases into 100 final at Olympic trials.”

AFA, FTW!

(via Balloon Juice)