Slamming the door on -gate

The suffix -gate has been added to random words to suggest a scandal for some time now - 1972, to be exact - and some people have had enough. For me, pastygate was a gate too far, but for others it might have been bigotgate or cablegate (covered here in 2010).

This article in the Chicago Tribune argues that it's time to shut the gate for good and find new ways of labelling scandals.  It's also good for those of you looking at Language Change and how new words enter the language, so helpful for ENGA3 revision.

Synecdoche SW12

Fancy stretching your vocabulary a bit further? Like a bit of lexical flexing? Try this 7 question quiz on the BBC website, inspired by the troublesome title of the latest Charlie Kaufman film, Synecdoche, New York.

There's also a brief article in today's Guardian about the word synecdoche, a term we've used in A2 lessons this term when looking at how some words and phrases used to label social groups have been formed ("Nice bit of ass" = an attractive woman etc.). Then there's metonymy, a similar process in which a metaphorical link is made between an object and the thing associated with it (e.g. "hoodie" becomes the person wearing it)

These are words that Sean and Gilberto already use with great perspicacity and aplomb, so see if you too can elevate your lexical performance to match their verbal gymnastics.