etymology - Why do we use the suffix “‑gate” when referring to a scandal?



I see a lot of times when something is a politically-oriented scandal that the suffix ‑gate is added to the end of the word the scandal revolves around.


Examples include:



I believe that it originated during the Watergate scandal, but I don't know why the suffix ‑gate was perpetuated to other scandals. Is there a name for this literary mechanism of using part of previously popularized term to elicit a comparison or similar connotation?



Answer



This is a great example of a back-formation: a word is treated as if it were composed of prefixes or suffixes, then taken apart (incorrectly) and remixed to form new words. Another famous example is cheeseburger. The ‑burger suffix is incorrectly taken from hamburger, which is a dish from Hamburg, not a burger made from ham.


Watergate was a big enough scandal, and sounds enough like it’s composed of Water‑ and ‑gate, that the suffix has been back-formed into plenty of other scandal names.


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