Gordon Bennett

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.[1] The first time the expression appears in print was in 1937, in James Curtis's novel, You’re in the Racket, Too.[2] The Oxford English Dictionary places the phrase in the 1890s as an alteration of gorblimey and again in reference to James Gordon Bennett Jr.[3]

The name was probably chosen because the first syllable of Gordon sounds like God in non-rhotic pronunciations, which would make this a minced oath.

Gordon Bennett

1. (UK, Ireland) expression of surprise, contempt, outrage, disgust, frustration.

• good grief
• what the fuck

• The Chambers Dictionary, →ISBN
• Cassell's Dictionary of Word & Phrase Origins