[Ads-l] Further Antedating of "Gonzo"

[Ben Zimmer]

Oops, I neglected to check GenealogyBank, which includes the Boston Herald
Traveler in its database. The Giuliano cite does indeed appear in the July
3, 1970 edition, on p. 9, col. 1. Giuliano also used the term in music
reviews later in 1970:

---
Boston Herald Traveler,  Aug. 14, 1970, p. 25, col. 1
Quite Gonzo, she [sc. Janis Joplin] sipped from a paper cup, snapped her
fingers for a cigarette, and stared bleary-eyed at the fans, occasionally
rotating her million-dollar hips.
---
Boston Herald Traveler, Sep. 6, 1970, p. 22, col. 2
But it cost [Joe] Cocker $300 a day to feed the mad total gonzo band.
---

There's also a long expose about drug use in an article titled "The
Massachusetts Scene" by Larry Novick, suggesting the term was in wider
local use.

---
Boston Herald Traveler, Sep. 20, 1970, p. 27, col. 3
To emphasize the mental dangers of indiscriminate use of drugs (in this
case amphetamines) the psychiatrist displayed a letter received by a friend
who had advertised in a local newspaper for an assistant to help edit a
manuscript.
The letter said in part:
"I am a literary freak. I read your adv. in weekly. I am Gonzo. I would
like to edit your manuscript. Do you have the iron discipline I need?
"What I would like to do is meet you. I am Total Gonzo."
---

And in the Oct. 18, 1970 issue of the Herald Traveler, a purported single
called "Blaze" by Gonzo Band appears in a "Tops in Pops" list. But since I
don't see any other mention of that single, it may have been inserted
by Giuliano
as a joke.

--bgz


On Wed, Jul 15, 2026 at 10:33 AM Ben Zimmer <bgzimmer at gmail.com> wrote:

> Thanks for bringing Wills's fascinating essay to our attention, Fred.
> Wills also mentions (but does not explicitly cite) a slightly later example
> of adjectival "gonzo" used in print by Charles Giuliano on July 3, 1970.
> (Giuliano had issued a challenge to antedate that, which Wills successfully
> accomplished.) Here's the Giuliano cite:
>
> ---
> Boston Herald Traveler, July 3, 1970
> Some 25,000 gonzo fans jammed the bowl end of Harvard Stadium, Wednesday,
> July 1 to hear their sex-rock idols, Ten Years After. The Schaefer Festival
> foams on with top rock.
> ---
>
> I don't see an online archive covering the Herald (Traveler) from 1970,
> but the quote appears in the publisher's description of Giuliano's 2015
> memoir _Shards of a Life_, as well as in an announcement from the
> publisher about the book launch:
>
> https://www.amazon.com/Shards-Life-Charles-Giuliano/dp/0996171509/
> https://www.google.com/books/edition/Shards_of_a_Life/6mfesgEACAAJ
>
> https://berkshirefinearts.com/05-27-2015_charles-giuliano-at-the-mount-on-june-5.htm
>
> In any case, this second-earliest cite further supports Fred's point that
> OED's sense 2 should be given historical priority.
>
> --bgz
>
> On Wed, Jul 15, 2026 at 9:04 AM Shapiro, Fred <
> 00001ac016895344-dmarc-request at listserv.uga.edu> wrote:
>
>> 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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