“Some have begun to call public schools ‘government schools,’ a calculated pejorative scorning both education and anything related to government,” he wrote.

That elicited a response from Bob Weeks, the host of “WichitaLiberty.TV,” a show about Kansas politics and public affairs.

“It is surprising to me that liberals and progressives object to the term ‘government schools,’” he said on the show. “They like government, don’t they? These people want more taxation and government spending, don’t they? Well, when we think about our public schools, we find they have all the characteristics of government programs.”

Dave Trabert, the president of the Kansas Policy Institute, which advocates limited government, said in an interview: “It’s certainly something that some people use to kind of separate between what’s government and what’s not. Technically, it’s accurate.”

It would not be the first time that conservatives have used semantics to sway public opinion, experts said.

George Lakoff, a linguistics professor at the University of California, Berkeley, has been tracking the trend for decades. He pointed out that the right has been more successful than the left at framing issues related to abortion, health care, labor unions and the concept of government itself, among other issues, with carefully contrived catchphrases: “Tax relief.” “Pro-life.” “The Democrat Party.” “Death panels.” (“Obamacare” was originally an attempt by the right to saddle President Obama with the repercussions of the Affordable Care Act, until he embraced the term himself.)

Besides coining phrases, Dr. Lakoff said, the right has co-opted certain words — a practice that was demonstrated, he said, in President George W. Bush’s second inaugural address, which used “freedom,” “free” or “liberty” 49 times in 20 minutes. “The right has taken over the words ‘freedom’ and ‘liberty,’” Dr. Lakoff said.