Is there really no other hotel available for this sort of thing? If you're a politician, why would you go there? This is a profession in serious need of superstitions. (And, apparently, a new scandal-naming convention.)
Posted by Kriston at May 5, 2006 2:43 PMIt's not a scandal-naming convention, so much as it's a quoting convention, right?
It's like the use/mention distinction, except it's mention/mention. As in, using the word 'X' is a way of mentioning X. But using the word 'X-gate' is a way of mentioning the scandal that took place at/near/around/involving X.
It's as if we had derived our use of '-quotes from an actual word where the quotes were part of how you spelled the word, and the word had something to do with mentioning other words. Like, as if the word 'quote' were actually spelled ''quote''. And then, as a reference, we always quoted words in the future with just 'X'.
On the other hand, I want to see politicians and journalists start using some funky brackets around their names, to quote them... Watergate the hotel, and |Watergate| the scandal. Bleargh.
Posted by: son1 at May 5, 2006 4:17 PMOver at Whiskey Bar, billmon referred to it as "Fornigate". I like that.
Posted by: alex at May 6, 2006 3:47 PM