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If you want to contact us,
please email info@insidepolitics.org.za
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09 September 2010
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I THINK THEREFORE I(D) IS
One of the defining characteristics of almost any piece of communication issued by the Independent Democrats is the remarkable use – or perhaps that should be misuse - of the organisation’s name.
(Before exploring the matter any further, for the record, the official registered name for Patricia de Lille’s party is the ‘Independent Democrats’ [note the ‘s’ at the end]. So far as the English language is concerned, however, it was a clumsy choice, as will become evident. The Independent Democratic Party, for example, might have been a better option.)
The problem revolves around the fact that the concept of a political party is a unitary one - i.e. if you refer to the Independent Democrats, you are referring to an indivisible, single entity (specifically, a whole that represents a set of constituent parts), just like the Democratic Alliance or the Pan Africanist Congress.
Each of those organisations can be broken down into smaller parts, all the way down to individual members, but when you speak about the organisation as a whole, you are talking about a single entity.
‘Independent Democrats’, however, can be a bit confusing, because it appears to be a plural, the singular of which would be ‘Independent Democrat’. That, however, would be wrong.
While a person might be described as an independent democrat (note the lower case) - i.e. he or she has the personal characteristics of independence and a belief in democratic principles - an individual member of the Independent Democrats should, quite simply, be referred to as an Independent Democrats member or ID member.
Also, the fact that the name was registered without a collective noun at the end – like alliance, congress or party – means that it is far easier to conflate or confuse the singular and the plural.
The safest bet is just to stick to the acronym - the ID - which by and large removes the possibility of confusion, simply because people tend to see and refer to an acronym as a single thing (and, so far as the English language goes, it is).
That all may seem fairly obvious, but it’s a concept and a distinction with which the ID seems to struggle.
Patricia de Lille is notorious for saying things like, “the Independent Democrats is opposed to this” or, “the Independent Democrats has taken such and such a position”.
(See here and here for two good, recent examples.)
There are, quite literally, hundreds of other examples, dating all the way back to the party’s formation in 2003.
Now, on purely technical grounds, De Lille does have a defence. One could register any name – no matter how clumsy – as the name of a political party and, technically, it would still refer to a unitary entity.
Imagine, for example, registering a party called the ‘Individual Persons’. You would then have sentences like, “the Individual Persons is opposed to this Bill” - very messy stuff.
‘Independent Democrats’ is basically another version of this conflation of singular and plural concepts.
(The clumsiness is revealed by substituting a collective noun – say ‘party’ – for ‘Individual Persons’ or ‘Independent Democrats’. Then those examples outlined above make a lot more sense: “the party is opposed to this Bill” or “the party has taken such and such a position”.)
Basically though, plain common sense tells you that the sentence “the Independent Democrats is opposed to this Bill” just doesn’t work. It’s clumsy and grammatically awkward.
Anyone can make a mistake and, in politics, where parties are constantly involved in a fight to best communicate their message to the voters, the<
| Posted on 5/6/2007
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