What's it gate?

[DipsyNix]

Can anyone tell me why something happens in the news someone sticks the word gate at the end of it??? To create a headline for example Beckham gate, hope someone understands what i am asking because it bugs me

[jno]

it's from Watergate, the famous scandal that brought down President Richard Nixon in the 1970s. The Watergate building was where the initial burglary took place (I guess it in turn was named after the water gates of ancient buildings by the river; I think the building is on the Potomac). So now it gets attached to anything looking like a scandal.

[jno]

haaa, just spotted your name - you're not Nixon yourself, are you?

[DipsyNix]

ha ha rumbled

[DipsyNix]

thanx for that by the way

[VS Prasad]

That Elton John and Kiki Dee could have come about as a result of a Gareth Gates (an innocent mistake) or a blurter (a bad judgment call).

http://www.doubletongued.org/index.php/citatio ns/gareth_gates_1/

gate(v) - to arrest (for the same crime) a prisoner just released under parole; to hold a prisoner beyond the period when parole would ordinarily be permitted.
(Subjects: English, Canada, Crime & Prisons).

Nazarbaev has criticized the case, coined �Kazakhgate,� as an empty ploy by his political opponents but has seldom commented in detail on the allegations in the five years since they first surfaced.