Dear World (especially F1 supporters),
I feel the time has come to bring to your attention a particular niggle of mine. Now, I understand that you think that if you suffix "-gate" to another word, it means "a scandal concerning this word". I suppose you're right, contextually, although I'm not sure the folks up at the Oxford dictionary would necessarily agree. Still, the point is this: less is more.
I know we support a sport that is rife with scandal and drama, but not everything needs to be a "-gate". In the last few years, we've had spygate (when McLaren stole design secrets from Ferrari), crashgate (when Piquet Jr. put his car into the wall accidentally-on-purpose because of team orders), liegate (Hamilton let Trulli past under the safety car and then lied about it a number of times under oath. Again, team orders) and now "fasterthanyougate" (Smedley told Massa that Alonso was "faster than him" and Massa subsequently followed the command and let his team mate through). (As an aside, does anyone else see the pattern with team orders here?)
Sometimes it's a mistake and comes under "s**t happens"; sometimes it's team orders; more often than not, it's someone trying to claw their way a little higher up the ladder. With that in mind, please can we, as a group, think up a new word? Just because, years ago, a scandal centered around a building called "Watergate", doesn't mean we need to concatenate "-gate" to every piece of drama. 'Kay?
Yours,
Brij x
I feel the time has come to bring to your attention a particular niggle of mine. Now, I understand that you think that if you suffix "-gate" to another word, it means "a scandal concerning this word". I suppose you're right, contextually, although I'm not sure the folks up at the Oxford dictionary would necessarily agree. Still, the point is this: less is more.
I know we support a sport that is rife with scandal and drama, but not everything needs to be a "-gate". In the last few years, we've had spygate (when McLaren stole design secrets from Ferrari), crashgate (when Piquet Jr. put his car into the wall accidentally-on-purpose because of team orders), liegate (Hamilton let Trulli past under the safety car and then lied about it a number of times under oath. Again, team orders) and now "fasterthanyougate" (Smedley told Massa that Alonso was "faster than him" and Massa subsequently followed the command and let his team mate through). (As an aside, does anyone else see the pattern with team orders here?)
Sometimes it's a mistake and comes under "s**t happens"; sometimes it's team orders; more often than not, it's someone trying to claw their way a little higher up the ladder. With that in mind, please can we, as a group, think up a new word? Just because, years ago, a scandal centered around a building called "Watergate", doesn't mean we need to concatenate "-gate" to every piece of drama. 'Kay?
Yours,
Brij x
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