The term "gerrymandering" is named after American politician Elbridge Gerry (pronounced with a hard "g"; "Gherry"), Vice President of the United States at the time of his death, who, as Governor of Massachusetts in 1812, signed a bill that created a partisan district in the Boston area that was compared to the shape of a mythological salamander. The term has negative connotations and gerrymandering is almost always considered a corruption of the democratic process. The resulting district is known as a "gerrymander" (). The word is also a verb for the process.