[Ads-l] Further Antedating of "Gonzo"

[Shapiro, Fred]

The Oxford English Dictionary has an entry for Hunter S. Thompson's famous adjective "gonzo."  The OED has two senses for the term.  Sense 1 is a genre of journalism.  Sense 2 is a general meaning "bizarre, crazy; far-fetched."  The earliest citation for sense 1 is dated November 11, 1971; the earliest citation for sense 2 is dated 1974.  In 2022 I found sense 1 ("gonzo journalism") in a letter by Thompson dated April 20, 1971.

Here is an earlier citation for the general sense 2, which now must be regarded as the original sense:

1970 Boston Globe 14 June D19/1 (ProQuest)  For five years Alpert [Richard Alpert, known as Baba Ram Dass] attempted to sustain the level of enlightenment he had encountered that snowy night in Newton.  He tried every chemical he was handed.  He took over 300 LSD trips.  He smoked pot and went Gonzo on STP, the most powerful hallucinogen ever concocted.

This citation occurs in an article by Robert Taylor.  On first glance it might seem that Taylor's use is only one of many pre-1971 coincidental occurrences of "gonzo" in meanings having nothing to do with Hunter S. Thompson, such as names of persons.  However, Taylor's article appeared in the Boston Globe magazine edited by Bill Cardoso, a close friend of Thompson's.  Cardoso presumably was familiar with the article.  Thompson repeatedly stated that he got the word "gonzo" from Cardoso.

The discovery of the 1970 citation was not made by me.  I found it discussed in a 2025 essay by David S. Wills.  Wills's essay is an exceptionally detailed analysis of the origins of "gonzo."  It may be found at beatdom.substack.com/uncovering-the-origins-of-gonzo-on.

Fred Shapiro





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