"Gate"-aholics II

This is not going to be a long post (and there are the famous last words) because it doesn't need to be and I've already made a substantial entry today. Plus I'm tired, so this is bound to not be as good as I want it to be anyway.

I agree that the use of -gate as a suffix should be avoided in general, and I believe that it largely is apart from by those in the press. I believe that it's functional more than patronising to the reader however, being as it is a catch-all phrase which is useful in headlines and summaries. I do however see the constant stream of -gate's in the media as lazy (and not in the good language evolution way, in the uncreative I-can't-be-bothered-to-think-of-anything-else way).

I think I know what you mean about -gate being more specific than the other neologisms I mentioned, and that whereas something like "workaholic" is instantly understandable, as long as you know what "work" and -holism both mean, "spygate" isn't. I don't think that's necessarily a problem. We've already agreed that "spygate" is rubbish in the story it's been used in, but also pretty much in any context as it is so vague. Let's take another fairly recent example instead: Lewinskygate. I'd say that anyone with a general knowledge of recent history would know that Lewinskygate refers to the Monica Lewinsky scandal of the mid to late '90s. When more carefully formed, -gate constructions can work as a useful summarising of something that would otherwise be a little wordy. In the Lewinskygate example, you'd have to instead say "The Monica Lewinsky scandal" or "the Clinton-Lewinsky affair". I personally prefer the more wordy descriptions as they seem more elegant (as elegant as a presidential sex scandal can be, anyway), but I'd have no problem with anyone using Lewinskygate either.

Insofar as being understood in general conversation, I'd also say that both the -gate construction and a more traditional description are on a par. With either, you'd have to have at least some knowledge of the event to know what it referred to. Using "the Monica Lewinsky scandal" and "Lewinskygate" again, I think that with both you'd have to have some background knowledge of the event; in both cases, if you knew nothing about it you'd have to ask for further clarification. And again, putting "spygate" into this example against something like "the F1 McLaren scandal" shows how terrible that particular -gate really is.

I hope all that's made sense. I agree with you on most of your points, and pretty much everything you've said about the way a lot of the media write, but I'm still willing to not close the gate on -gate, if you get my meaning.