I'm kind of glad that this whole Janet Jackson thing happened during halftime of Super Bowl XXXVIII, because it prompted the lazy-ass media to fall back on one of its most tired practices, and thus gave me the chance to rant about one of my pet peeves.
In at least one report, the baring of Janet's breast on live, national broadcast television was referred to as "Nipplegate."
I scoured the remainder of the article for corroborating information, but found none. No mention was made of the existence of documentation that Ms. Jackson and her partner in alleged crime, Justin Timberlake, had planned the incident; the theft of said documentation (by, perhaps, Britney Spears) from either Ms. Jackson's or Mr. Timberlake's room at the Nipplegate Hotel; nor evidence of an attempt by the president of MTV to cover up the burglary.
Alas, there is no such place as the Nipplegate Hotel (although if there were, it would undoubtedly offer special day and hourly rates). Nor are there hotels called Monicagate, Travelgate, or Iran-Contragate, to name but a fictitious few.
There is, of course, a
Watergate Hotel in Washington, D.C., and the stand-alone use of the phrase "Watergate" as a euphemism for a specific scandal that occurred at that location is entirely appropriate.
But all other instances of controversies in which the press has attached the suffix "-gate" to any other word are hereby declared null and void. It's well past time to cease and desist this practice in favor of reporting the news using ACTUAL WORDS.
And while we're on the subject: An
alcoholic is someone who's addicted to alcohol. So what, exactly, is
chocahol? I've heard of chocolate-flavored vodka and chocolate liqueur, but given the context in which the term
chocaholic is generally used, those definitions just don't seem to fit.
And what about
workahol? Is that anything like
workfare? Is someone who's addicted to their welfare-to-work program a
workfareaholic? I don't care if Webster's ultimately does sanction such words -- they're not clever, they're just plain wrong, and the use of them is, to coin my own fake word,
assholic. Seriously, run them through spell check (see "BillGates") and you'll find that not only are they not real words, but the suggested alternatives are so far off, they can be downright comical.
Oh, and by the way, Janet: Nice tit.
Coming up after the break: TV watchers Down Under express shock over a skin-baring performance by one of their nation's most beloved pop stars during halftime of the Australian-Rules Football Championship Match. Stay tuned for our team coverage of "The Natalie Imbru-haha," next on Headline News.
