Definitions
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
- interj. expression of surprise, contempt, outrage, disgust, frustration.
Etymologies
Either for Henry Gordon Bennett, an Australian lieutenant general who deserted his command and fled to safety during the Japanese invasion of Singapore, leaving his unfortunate troops behind to be captured, or for James Gordon Bennett, Jr., a New York newspaper proprietor and playboy during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries who became widely known for his extravagant lifestyle and shocking behaviour. The latter explanation is more likely, as the first time the expression appears in print was in 1937, in James Curtis's novel, You’re in the Racket, Too. (Wiktionary)
Examples
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My opus 376 pages, on decision-making in the British, French, and American governments during the 1956 Suez Crisis, was sufficiently interesting to others that it won Yale’s James Gordon Bennett Prize for the year’s best essay in international relations.
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When the elder James Gordon Bennett died the newspaper world recognized the loss of one of the most remarkable and successful of journalists and publishers.
Comments
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