What is the origin of the exclamation "Gordon Bennett"? Who was he?

Gordon Bennett.

This was a real person, named in full James Gordon Bennett. Confusingly, there were two of them. Mr Bennett the elder was born in Scotland in 1795, emigrated to the US, became a journalist, founded the New York Herald in 1835, and instituted many of the methods of modern journalism. His son of the same name (universally known as Gordon Bennett, to start with probably to distinguish him from his father) was also a good journalist (he sent Stanley to Africa to seek out Livingstone) but preferred the good life, mostly in London and Paris. He spent much of the fortune accumulated by him and his father in promoting air and road racing in England and France and generally being the playboy.


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James Gordon Bennett Jr, was known in North America and Europe for his flamboyant, extravagant lifestyle and shocking behaviour, an example of which is that he unashamedly urinated in full view in the fire place of his fiancee's family home, when he arrived there late one evening.

It is the nature of such behaviour, the shock value, as it were, that led to the term Gordon Bennett being coined as expression of surprise.

Ewwww!