“Almost immediately, the newspapers hurried to give it a name. Columnists on the right of the political spectrum used words like chasm, tear, wound and breach. Editors on the left preferred words like gap, opening and interval. The tabloids went for slit, cleft and gash. Academics liked aperture and interstice, but for reasons that hardly need explaining, they didn’t catch on. The market traders who were interviewed over and over for reasons no one really understood called it ‘that bloody great hole’. On Twitter it trended as #thecrack and also #thealiensarehere and #Sorosmadeithappen. In the end, only one word stuck. In the end, people called it the Rift.”
