-QUIDDIC

"I keep telling you: it's not '-gate.'"

Sometimes it can be hard to track down where something starts on the internet. Often what someone thinks they've invented they heard somewhere else, and the exact origin can be challenging to discover.

Recently at Five Feet of Fury, Kathy Shaidle declared that instead of using the term "-gate" after a scandal (such as memogate, travelgate, etc) we should use -quiddic. Why? Well if you think about it the use of -gate is a specific and deliberate attempt to relate all scandal to Nixon and Watergate. As if that was the first or biggest scandal in American political history. Using -quiddic draws attention to a more greusome and much less covered and considered scandal, the killing of a young girl by drunken Senator Kennedy and the subsequent attempt to cover it up.

Looking back, the earliest internet reference I can find is actually a commenter at Little Green Footballs caled christheprofessor. This was in 2005 in reference to Eason Jordan's latest idiotic statement and it actually recalls a previous attempt I cannot dig up:

We had this discussion about a month or so ago. I suggested replacing the "gate" suffix with "quiddic" in honor of Ted Kennedy. Didn't catch on, though...

:(

Whether he's been banned like so many readers at LGF lately is uncertain but as far as I can tell, that's the first reference to using quiddic as a suffix.

Personally, I'll be using it from now on. I suggest and encourage others do so as well, at least when referring to Democrat scandals.