vatileaks/vatigate

[Clai Rice]

Watch the crisis scandal naming wars in action.

Raw Google Verbatim hits (vhits?) gives 2,860,000 for vatileaks (577
actual)
earliest English (aside from an antivatican "wilileaks" website and a
vatileaks.wordpress.com blog that seem to predate the scandal) example is
a 15 Feb 2012 Reuters release by Philip Pullella
http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/02/15/us-vatican-corruption-idUSTRE81E
17E20120215?feedType=RSS&feedName=everything&virtualBrandChannel=11563
(Reuters has a nice search facility where you can search the feeds of
individual reporters.) Pullella states that Italian journalists had dubbed
the scandal "vatileaks", but on a brief search of Italian news sites I
don't see the word used before that date. Did see it in a smattering of
German news posts on Feb 14.

The same day, a blog linking to the story gets a comment:

DeaconBlues: OH NO!! "Vatileaks?!" My head is swimming with "wikileaks"
now "vatileaks" and next no doubt will the "The Vatigate Scandal."
http://www.eunuch.org/forums/showthread.php?22381-Vatileaks
Seems to me this writer has seen the future regarding scandal names.

Vatileaks already has registered as a search trend, while vatigate has
not.
http://www.google.com/insights/search/#q=vatileaks%2Cvatigate&date=today%2
012-m&cmpt=q

Only 1710 vhits for vatigate, though one blogger has already registered a
terminological preference. He "prefer[s] Vatigate which trips more easily
off the tongue". No mention of terminological accuracy.
http://ironicusmaximus.blogspot.com/2012/05/how-do-you-say-i-am-not-crook-
in-latin.html

Will Vatileaks turn into Vatigate?

--Clai Rice

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