Categories
Today

Watergate!

Sharing

On May 17, 1973, televised hearings regarding the Watergate scandal began in the United States Senate. Sen. Sam Ervin chaired.

Little did participants know that the name of the hotel in which the White House-​arranged break-​ins occurred would provide a template for most future political scandals: “-gate” would be suffixed to nearly every other possible designator of scandal. Hillary Clinton’s problems regarding a private Internet server has been called “Emailgate,” for instance.

This could be called a suffix meme. Or insufferable meme, if you prefer.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *