Antedating of "Gizmo"

Garson O'Toole adsgarsonotoole at GMAIL.COM
Thu Sep 6 12:42:15 UTC 2012


Fred Shapiro
> gizmo (OED 1943)
>
> 1942 _Greensboro_ (NC) _Record_ 14 Oct. 2 (GenealogyBank)  Turning to the l=
> ighter side today, maybe you would be interested in some Marine Corps verna=
> cular. ... GIZMO -- When you need a word for something in a hurry and can't=
>  think of one, it's a gizmo.

Excellent. That is an improvement over the Historical Dictionary of
American Slang also. HDAS cites a November 1942 issue of Leatherneck.
Garson

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