Gate - A Word Investigation

Gate is a four letter word and when thinking about it many things come to mind; the Golden Gate Bridge, political scandals like Watergate and more recently Partygate, gate as a road and gate for gate’s sake (meaning a physical barrier). And so, for this article I went on yet another investigative journey to dive deeper and find out more.

Golden Gate Bridge - Where did it get its name?

This formidable 1930s structure in San Francisco was named not for the Gold Rush as many might suspect, but after the body of water that runs beneath it. The Golden Gate Strait, so the story goes, was named by John Fremont when remarking about the narrow area separating the Bay and the Pacific Ocean, “It is a golden gate to trade with the Orient”. In Fremont’s context ‘gate’ means an entrance or access, the number three meaning in Collins Dictionary.

Golden Gate Bridge (Photo credit: Maha Feghali Vartanians)

Watergate and other political scandals - Why is the word ‘gate’ used as a suffix?

Firstly, Watergate (1972-1974) was a political scandal that happened in the United States involving the administration of President Richard Nixon. It was named after the complex where the scandal took place. This scandal set the convention for using ‘gate’ as a suffix for future scandals particularly in Britain such as the recent Partygate and the 1993 Camillagate.

Gates as physical barriers – How many types are there?

According to Property Geek there are at least 23 types of gates based on their functions including sliding, turnstile, vertical pivot, swing, retractable security and automatic (electric). They can be made of many different materials.

Wooden Swing Gate - Hilltop, National Trust

Interestingly when researching this, Logic Gates popped up. Logic Gates act as building blocks for digital circuits and there are seven: AND, OR, XOR, NOT, NAND, NOR, NXOR. They are called Logic Gates because they control a flow of signal much like conventional gates on a farm controlling the flow of livestock.

Why is ‘gate’ incorporated into road names in parts of the UK?

‘Gate’ is derived from ‘gata’, a Norse word meaning road or way, brought to my attention when coming across Whip-Ma-Whop-Ma-Gate, the shortest street in York many years ago. York has many street names with  ‘gate’ at the end including Colliergate (street of colliers), Spurriergate (street of spur makers) and Gillygate (St Giles Street).

Sticking my nose into history further, I discovered Nottingham was the Anglo Saxon town of Snotingeham (village of Snot or Snota’s people) and was taken by the Danish Vikings in 867 - 918.

During the Viking occupation street names were changed, some remaining to present day. Thus Nottingham also has loads of street names incorporating the word ‘gate’ at their tail end i.e. Barker Gate(barker or tanner street), Castle Gate (street leading to the castle) and Fisher Gate (street of fishermen).

Then there’s Fishergate in Preston that was originally called Fishers Weg (the fisherman’s way), named by the Anglian settlers in the 5th and 6th centuries. However it was the Scandanavian influence in the 11th century that changed it to Fishergate. Moving up along the coast to Blackpool, there is ‘Starr Gate’ in South Shore. ‘Starr’ refers to the ‘Starr’ grass which grows locally and ‘gate’ represents road/way derived once again from the historic Scandinavian word ‘gata’.

This led me to wondering how Headroomgate Road in St Annes-on-the-Sea got its name. Was there a Norse connection? Seemingly not. The ‘gate’ in this case according to David Hoyle, on behalf of the Lytham Archive team means a physical barrier where cows and sheep could go through, but not horses.

Headroomgate Farm (Photo credit: Lytham Archive Collection)

As a final anecdote, research took me to Facebook and I now find myself a member of the Pointless Gates, Silly Signs and other Associated Infrastructure page. It’s well worth joining for a good laugh.

High Security Gate (Photo credit: Benji Williams)
From Pointless Gates, Silly Signs and other Associated Infrastructure FB page.

And on that note, I’ll close on a bit of gated nonsense.

Gates

I ate a gate, a gate I ate.
I ate a gate eight times, times eight.
Times eight, times ten, I’d do it again.
Yes I would, I’d do it again.

I crashed a party, a party I crashed.
Ran into a gate. Gate smashed! Gate smashed!
Gate crashed, gate smashed. Say who? Say when?
Yes I would, I’d do it again.

How I ate a gate, don’t know.
How I crashed? ‘Twas stop and go.
And in the morn, when all is zen
I think of ‘gate’ because I can.

Thank you for reading

Kate. J

Sources:

https://www.grandyorkshire.com/blog/street-names-in-york/
https://www.nottinghampost.com/news/history/many-nottingham-street-names-end-870178
https://emidsvikings.ac.uk/items/nottingham/
https://theconstructor.org/building/buildings/types-gates-functions/567849/
https://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/articles/zt4tqfr
https://prestonhistory.com/sources-2/preston-street-names-chapter-2/