gonzo (journalism)

Laurence Horn laurence.horn at YALE.EDU
Thu Feb 15 00:57:24 UTC 2001


At 8:17 AM -0800 2/14/01, James Smith wrote:
>--- "Douglas G. Wilson" <douglas at NB.NET> wrote:
>>  >Possibly derived from 'gonzo', Italian for: NOODLE;
>>  >LOOPY; DUPE; NINNY; NODDY; NINCOMPOOP; MUG.
>>
>>  ...But I think "ginzo" is older than "gonzo", in
>>  English?...
>
>>  -- Doug Wilson
>
>They both could have come from the same Italian word,
>'gonzo' entering English directly and ginzo'
>transformed by English speakers who misunderstood the
>Italian, or deliberately mispronounced it to increase
>the effect.  Did 'ginzo' originate as a self-reference
>among Italian-Americans, or did it originate with
>non-Italian speaking Americans to designate 'those
>Eye-talian people'?
>
Nobody's yet mentioned "gonzo journalism/journalist" on this thread.
I'd always associated it with Hunter S. Thompson (_Fear and Loathing
in Las Vegas_, etc., and model for a character in the Doonesbury
strip), and according to the RHHDAS he actually coined the label
himself in Rolling Stone in 1971 'to characterize his own style of
subjective, creative, hyperbolic, strongly satirical journalism'.
The RHHDAS, but presumably not Thompson himself, suggests that the
term was 'perhaps ultimately suggested by It. "gonzo", 'simpleton'..
Tamony (AS 58 (1973): 73-75 is referenced.  From the Atlantic (July
1973) we have the eloquent observation that "Gonzo Journalism
supplements the techniques of the novelist with the techniques of the
lunatic".

larry
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