That Girl from Derwent dwells on the value of religion this Christmas.
That Girl from Derwent has learned a few more things about prejudice since moving up North.
That Girl From Derwent reckons if you're going to be offensive, you should find a better reason.
That Girl from Derwent considers why it is that some words have wider implications than others.
Flipping heck, why on earth does every scandal automatically get suffixed with the word ‘gate’? No, readers, I am not ridiculously ill-read; I know precisely what the suffix ‘gate’ represents, but for goodness sake, that scandal was decades ago and we are still using it as casual terminology. Do you know what I think? It’s lazy journalism. Reporters who can’t be bothered to think of a more clever way of phrasing something they consider scandalous simply stick ‘gate’ at the end. “Ah ha!” thinks The Lazy Journalist, “Now everyone knows how well-read I am, as I can use the suffix ‘gate’ correctly to describe this current scandal. How wise I am!”
Except, they’re not. Firstly, I think that very few so-called scandals are anywhere near as big as the original Watergate story. Someone faking an injury in a rugby match (known as ‘Bloodgate’, don’t you know) is ridiculously tiny in comparison to a story which led to the resignation of a president. I may accept the suffix ‘gate’ when it demarcates a story as huge as this - and by this, I mean, its impact affects a large population to a large extent. Apologies for attacking campus media now - but I did read an article which cunningly used the term “Portergate”. Now, excuse me, but in what way do porters' hours being cut at a small university (pain in the bum though it may be) compare to the president spying on his opposition? I mean, really. Get a hold on yourselves.
Journalists are supposed to be witty, informed, intelligent members of society who comment on important stories for the public’s benefit. Constantly reusing the same suffix to point out how scandalous a story is, quite frankly, poor. As a caring blogger, wishing to help my peers, I’ve come up with a few words to help them describe a scandal. Here we go. Scandalous, appalling, shocking, outrageous, impolite, immoral, shameful, indecent, disrespectful, rude, disreputable, disgraceful, humiliating, indiscreet, offensive, course, and licentious (which is quite possibly my favourite). Pick one, pick two, pick many - but don’t be lazy, don’t use –gate, or I’ll be applying the above words to your writing style.
This is something that has bugged me for years! The press used to *love* using it in reference toBig Brother. Every year there'd be at least 3 '-gates' in the tabloids. They even once had an incident with someone spilling water over someone else and dubbed it 'Watergate'. Um...not quite accurate, is it?
I'm quite bemused as I read this as I was having these exact same thoughts for a while now. I tried to convince Vision to use 'Porter Clusterf#@k' as opposed to the above, in fact, I think '*insert term* Clusterf#@k' is a great alternative and should be sed in all cases; until that too becomes a cliche.
Someone been watching Mitchell and Webb have they? Still, good point.
-aholic is equally bad. No-one can possibly be "addicted" to shopping or chocolate in the same way that an alcoholic is to alcohol, and even over-indulgently spending or eating has ridiculously minimal effects compared to compulsively poisoning yourself and destroying your life.A much better suffix is -tastic, which only makes the world better, admittedly in a somewhat cheesetastic way.
I think this is all dead right, apart from Portergate. Sure, its no Watergate, but then again, Nouse/Vision are no New York Times or Washington Post. In campus terms, the scales are probably similar. They are York student papers after all.
Personally I prefer prefixes.
Noun"-esque".
No, no, no, no, NO!
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