187 Minutes

Back in the ‘70s, President Richard Nixon resigned from office over his involvement in the break-in and subsequent cover-up of the Democratic Party headquarters at the Watergate Apartment-Office building.  The name Watergate morphed into the creation of new words associated with scandals, such as spygate, inflategate, Whitewatergate, Monicagate, nipplegate and the list goes on and on.

So, with the Jan. 6 Congressional hearings aired last week in prime time, pointing out relentlessly that the U.S. Capitol was overrun with insurrectionists for “187 minutes,” how long will it be before that term becomes a part of our everyday vernacular?

Will it be “in the blink of an eye,” “in a New York minute,” “a stitch in time” or will it take “a lifetime” or occur “once in a blue moon” or before the “two-minute warning” before some variation of “187” or “187 minutes” becomes a recognized reference to lawlessness, insurrectionists, rioting or anti-Americanism?

Will it become a woke term?

Society has proven itself in adopting and incorporating new words into the English language as they become commonly used. So much so that Merriam-Webster  and sites like Dictionary.com are constantly updating themselves.  We’ve written about it before on a number of occasions.

I’m sure we’ll be TikToking about it soon.  Just ask Google.