comment #1

Zimmergirl says ...

That was then. Women are fast learners. Be afraid. Be very afraid.

comment #2

erniesouchak says ...

I don't know. I'm not a moron about technology and I've occasionally used "gizmos" to refer to whole families of devices. It's a hell of a lot easier than trying to remember what all of them are called.

comment #3

gruver1 says ...

Wells to zimmergirl: Be afraid of women because they're fast learners (what are you talking about?) or be afraid of Guider because she'll want to get back at Tom Tapp and myself for finding meaning in her use of that term? Wells to erniesouchak: so you're telling me certain terms DON'T connote yesteryear attitudes? You know that they do. It's obviously an eyebrow-raiser when a person like Guider, engaged front and center in a business that is changing over from ink and paper to digital 24 hour news cycles, conveys an attitude about new technologies that obviously indicates a lack of familiarity.

comment #4

mutinyco says ...

Maybe she's just a fan of Gremlins...

comment #5

Me says ...

I tend to agree with erniesouchak on this one. I think there's a big distinction between "gizmos," which doesn't connote unfamiliarity in the same way as "contraptions" does. I could use gizmos with my friends to talk about iPods, blackberries, laptops, cell phones, etc. and they wouldn't think anything of it. It would just sound like I wasn't being very specific. If I used "contraptions" or "dohickeys," I'd get looks like I was way out of the loop.

comment #6

drbob says ...

Jeff is wrong. Gizmos is a perfectly acceptable term for all manner of electronic and digital devices. It has a sort of retro-hipster flair, and does not necessarily indicate technological incompetence.

comment #7

Joe Leydon says ...

Well, I don't think it's quite fair to dis the lady for saying "gizmos" when she's referring to all those thingamabobs. I do it all the time. Well, except when I'm referring to one, specific gizmo. Then I say "dingus."

comment #8

Bocephus says ...

I've been known to say "gizmos" and "dohickeys," as well as my favorite, "doomaflachie."

It's fun to use other words to describe objects. Try it some time! My friend used to call prostitutes "toots." Oh, how we laughed!

Besides, if we resign to using nothing but corporation-assigned words like "blackberry" and "iPod" aren't we simply succumbing to brand-name brainwashing?

comment #9

Gaydos says ...

Sure I'm not objective since I'm a former colleague of Guider but you could also say I'm extremely well-informed: the woman knows more about more than you can imagine. Guider is one of the sharpest, best-informed (she knows there's a world outside Hollywood and America and spent many years working in London and Rome) and most sophisticated women in the town.

So what if she's casual and relaxed and flippant enough to call our sacred technologies "gizmos." Don't mistake flippancy for luddite tendencies. Quite the opposite in her case.

And I say this knowing full well she's gone to work "down the street," as we say!

comment #10

T. Holly says ...

Great Gaydos, but my gizmo is still officially offended. Step one, include HR on-line with the cost of the print edition, like Variety does. Step two, go head to head with Screen International and open up that firewall.

comment #11

christian says ...

gizmos is a perfectly acceptable word that you still hear in constant use across the media.

tho if your face and fingers aren't plugged constantly into these social-bore devices you're clearly not in the geek groove.

and what is your replacement word, jeff?

comment #12

T. S. Idiot says ...

A bigger annoyance is the thousands of people who name their fuzzy cats, dogs, hamsters, etc. Gizmo in honor of Gremlins. More imagination, people!

comment #13

bmcintire says ...

Crapnology

comment #14

Gaydos says ...

I think Jeff is confusing "gizmo" with "thingamajig," which, incidentally, was Steve Jobs' original name for Apple.

Does anyone here remember when "plastic" was the evil word, not "gizmo?"

As the great poet, BobDylan/TwoPointOh said, "The times they are a-search-engine-optimizin'......"

comment #15

tommysunshine says ...

I first met Tom Tapp at Cannes 2004. Even then I had a hard time taking him seriously and he was too earnest to pass off as satire.
Here he is dissing a former colleague who has just got a job he went for and didn't get. Apparently she uses the word 'gizmo'. Woodward and Bernstein can sleep easy tonight.

comment #16

T. Holly says ...

Wow.