The well-oiled though creaky journalistic shorthand that is the “-gate” suffix has made it into the headlines again — this time in the form of Gordon Brown’s “bigotgate“. I won’t go into the details of this latest pseudo-scandal, which James Macintyre has written about elsewhere on this site, but here’s a list of the top-five most pointless “-gates” in recent history.
1. Scarfgate (2008)
. . . in which Sarah Palin — already at the centre of Troopergate and Wardrobegate — showed up on the campaign trail in a “Vote Democrats” scarf.
2. Tigergate (2009)
. . . in which a famous and wealthy sportsman was revealed to have had affairs. The humanity.
3. Toiletgate (2006)
. . . in which a chess player went to the toilet too many times during a game.
4. Closetgate (2006)
. . . in which a cartoon featured a closet.
5. Gatesgate (2009)
. . . in which the word “gate” was used too many times by lazy copywriters just because one of the people involved was called “Gates”.
There’s a comprehensive list of other “-gate” scandals here on Wikipedia. I blame Nixon.
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