When is a gate not a gate? When it’s a “spygate”. This is not a hinged partition in a fence for secret agents, but Donald Trump’s recent coinage for something that by all other accounts definitely didn’t happen: that Obama’s team planted a spy inside Trump’s campaign in order to help Hillary win, which also didn’t happen.
The suffix “-gate” to denote scandal derives from Watergate, which was not a scandal involving water but the name of the building complex where Nixon’s goons broke into the Democratic party offices in 1972. The first recorded derivative -gate was “Volgagate” in 1973, coined for a putative Russian scandal in National Lampoon magazine, and since then we have enjoyed Monicagate, Camillagate, nipplegate, plebgate (or gategate), gamergate and all the rest.
Like “-mageddon” or “-pocalypse”, “-gate” is usually used with ironic hyperbole for relatively trivial things. Or, in this case, purely imaginary things. Trump certainly seems to have hit viral paydirt with “spygate”, but what word could be capacious enough to cover the pandemonium of his presidency? Trumpgate? Bullshitgate? One thing is for sure, we’re going to need a bigger gate.
