[Ads-l] Gismo (1937, slight antedating)

[Bonnie Taylor-Blake]

Stephen Goranson had previously pushed "Gismo" and "Gizmo" back to
August and October of 1938.

https://listserv.linguistlist.org/pipermail/ads-l/2017-April/147487.html

(Dave Wilton summarizes this data in his analysis at
https://www.wordorigins.org/big-list-entries/gizmo.)

FWIW, here are some slightly earlier uses of "Gismo" as the names of
speedboats that appeared in races in and around Long Beach and San
Diego at least by June 1937.

For example,

Here's a mention of Horton Ealy's "Gismo IV" in The San Diego Sun, 13
June 1937, https://www.newspapers.com/article/the-san-diego-sun-gismo-iv-6131937/174867077/

And two weeks later in The Press Telegram (Long Beach), 27 June 1937,
https://www.newspapers.com/article/press-telegram-gizmo-iv-6271937/174866702/

On 26 July 1938 The San Diego Sun reported that John Cook planned to
pilot the "Gismo" in an upcoming race,
https://www.newspapers.com/article/the-san-diego-sun-gismo-7261938/174866909/

The Long Beach Sun noted that Horton Neeley's [Ealy's?] "Gismo II" had
crashed in a race the previous day, 4 September 1939,
https://www.newspapers.com/article/the-long-beach-sun-gismo-ii-941939/174867317/

And this looks to be a picture of Ealy in his "Gismo V," The San Diego
Sun, 16 September 1939,
https://www.newspapers.com/article/the-san-diego-sun-gismo-v-photograph/174866978/.

Ealy, a Michigan native, was a dental technician at the time and
didn't enlist until 1940. Obviously, though, that stretch of coast
between Long Beach and San Diego was a hotspot for the U.S. Navy and
Marine Corps, even in the '30s, so he may have just picked up the term
from the community in which he lived.

-- Bonnie

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