This article uses a 'follow the thing' methodology to trace the trajectory of the so-called word gap from its original conception in 1990s US academic knowledge production through to a teacher education programme and three schools in the north of England, in the mid-2020s. It focuses on one teacher's first encounters, reproduction, and ultimately rejection of the word gap. Far from an individual narrative, I use this example to tell a broader story of how global ideologies of linguistic deficit come to materialize in classrooms and restrict pedagogical autonomy. My methodological approach in this paper is purposefully diverse--a methodological mash up which draws from critical geographies, ethnography of language policy, critical applied linguistics, and the critical sociology of education. I show how a single named linguistic concept invented 30 years ago in the US continues to have a powerful influence in contemporary classrooms over 4000 miles away, whilst generating economic profit for its inventors, supporters, exporters, and suppliers. Put another way, I document the social life of the word gap as a concept which has far spatiotemporal reaches and is a core part of the globalized industry of deficit thinking more broadly.