Suffixgate

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/motorsport/formula_one/6994416.stm

It distresses me that the suffix '-gate' meaning 'scandal associated with' has become so deeply seated in my mind that I don't think twice when people use it. I find it distressing both because as a grammatical construction, it doesn't make any sense and because it's symptomatic of the media trying to simplify and sensationalise a story rather than just passing on the facts.

Why call the current F1 investigation 'spygate'? Firstly, it adds nothing to the story, other than giving lazy writers a convenient handle to use, and secondly it's a poor description of the scandal itself. 'Spygate' could (and probably has been used to) refer to any number of espionage-based scandals over the years, and will also be used in the future. While 'Watergate' instantly identifies one event in time, in 3 or 4 years, who is going to remember what 'spygate' referred to? Especially given how many '-gates' are apparently being coined in recent years (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/-gate).

Ultimately, there's no reason to ever coin a '-gate'. It was originally a pun on Watergate [citation needed], and it should have remained as such. I don't know why it grates so much when I hear -gate suffixes. Maybe I wish journalists were less interested in finding a catchy tagline for a story and more interested in the story itself.

I wish I could link to a clip of the Mitchell and Webb sketch about adding '-gate' to words, but I can't find it online anywhere at the moment.