GIMMICK

Use this forum to discuss past Good Words.
User avatar
Dr. Goodword
Site Admin
Posts: 7417
Joined: Wed Feb 02, 2005 9:28 am
Location: Lewisburg, PA
Contact:

GIMMICK

Postby Dr. Goodword » Tue Jan 03, 2006 12:14 am

• gimmick •

Pronunciation: gi-mik • Hear it!

Part of Speech: Noun

Meaning: A piece of trickery.

Notes: Today's Good Word originated as a gimmick itself (see Word History) but has survived long enough to have created a family. The adjective is gimmicky "containing a gimmick, like a gimmick" with an implied adverb, gimmickily. (Note the "y" becomes "i".) The art of creating gimmicks or the class of all gimmicks is gimmickery. Anything lacking gimmicks is gimmickless.

In Play: A gimmick is anything designed to trick someone into doing something they would not otherwise do: "Professor Lambrani's cane is not so much a support as a gimmick for gaining him the sympathy of his students and colleagues." Advertising and marketing have replaced magicians as the No. 1 users of gimmickery: "Rebates are gimmicks that allow advertisers to offer reduced prices only to customers willing to do bothersome work for them."

Word History: Today's Good Word started out in life as a thing of magic. It seems to have originated around the early 1920s but, like all new words, was not spelled for years. The original spelling was apparently intended to be gimac, an anagram of the word magic. The word itself was first used by those who had the greatest need of gimmicks at the time, magicians. It soon came to mean "a device for making a fair game crooked" (Wise-Crack Dictionary, 1926), then on to what it means today. (Tim Ward has a natural knack for coming up with interesting words like this one, which he first suggested we explore.)
• The Good Dr. Goodword

M. Henri Day
Grand Panjandrum
Posts: 1141
Joined: Tue Feb 15, 2005 8:24 am
Location: Stockholm, SVERIGE

Re: GIMMICK

Postby M. Henri Day » Tue Jan 03, 2006 3:45 pm

...

"Professor Lambrani's cane is not so much a support as a gimmick for gaining him the sympathy of his students and colleagues." ...
That is a canard ! Professor Lambrani simply had a gimmicky leg (anybody remember Gerald Ford ?), that's all !...

Henri
曾记否,到中流击水,浪遏飞舟?

Stargzer
Great Grand Panjandrum
Posts: 2578
Joined: Tue Feb 15, 2005 3:56 pm
Location: Crownsville, MD

Postby Stargzer » Wed Jan 04, 2006 1:54 am

In radio electronics, a gimmic (or gimmick) is a capacitor made by twisting two pieces of insulated wire together and adjusting the capacitance by clipping a bit off the end until the desired value is reached.
Regards//Larry

"To preserve liberty, it is essential that the whole body of the people always possess arms, and be taught alike, especially when young, how to use them."
-- Attributed to Richard Henry Lee


Return to “Good Word Discussion”

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: Google [Bot] and 36 guests