For gizmo: The etymology of gizmo

[obriendan]

William Safire’s column in this Sunday’s Houston Chronicle (and probably in many other Sunday editorial sections) is a wonderful discussion of "tongue-tippers" (substitutes for words that slip our minds, of great interest to those who, like myself, experience "senior moments"). He describes the origins of such words(?) as whatchamacallit, whichamahoosy, thingumabob, hootenanny, gadget, and on and on. He even discusses the origin of the term "gizmo", the name of one of CC’s most distinguished members. Doing a spell check on the above, the program accepts whatchamacallit, thingumabob, gadget and gizmo!

 

(Sorry if this is off cruise topics, but I thought it would be interesting to gizmo and others.)

[gizmo]

:) Thanks for the article, I found it with no problem. It was interesting reading.