Rex Stout in his novel “Gambit” has Nero Wolfe ripping up the “Third Edition of the New International Dictionary” because the dictionary listed “infer” and “imply” as synonyms. I feel the same way about an expression I read in this paper a week or so ago in one of the commentaries. (It has also been voiced on television.) The expression is, “This nation is not a democracy; it is a republic.” It is really hard to tell whether one can attribute this educational failure to our English departments or to our history classes.
The correct expression is, “Our nation is not a direct democracy; it is a republic.” For those too obtuse to have listened in either English or history class, a “republic” is a representative form of democracy. To imply that a republic is anything other than a democracy is incorrect. Readers and writers check the dictionary, even the “Third Edition of the New International Dictionary” ? if you can find the pieces that Wolfe ripped up.
Charles Moton
Lucerne
