gee-whizzery

English

Etymology

gee whiz +‎ -ery

Noun

gee-whizzery

1. A response of enthusiasm towards surprising and/or technically impressive things.
   • 2002, Alexander Doty, Flaming Classics: Queering the Film Canon, page 12:

     Dicussing the recent history of American cultural studies, Ross finds that it has “rejected the more celebratory, native tradition of gee-whizzery,” by and large.

   • 2010, Jane Gregory, Steve Miller, Science in Public: Communication, Culture, and Credibility, page 214:

     This shift toward the epideictic in popularizations of science—and the sensationalism and gee-whizzery that may result—is, then, not a punishment inflicted on science stories by disdainful or malicious journalists.

   • 2016 October 3, Tad Friend, “Sam Altman’s Manifest Destiny”, in The New Yorker‎^[1]:

     Though he is given to gee-whizzery about anything “super awesome”—Small amounts of radiation are actually good for you! It’s called radiation hormesis!—he has scant interest in the specifics of the apps that many YC companies produce; what intrigues him is their potential effect on the world.

   • 2022, Lindsey Fitzharris, The Facemaker:

     In the rush to introduce new technologies into education—whether inside or outside of Canadian schools—objectives and outcomes can be lost sight of, overwhelmed by the “gee - whizzery” of techno-fetishism, often on the part of educators unfamiliar with, and intimidated by, the new technologies themselves.

2. Something that inspires gee-whizzery; something surprising and/or technically impressive.
   • 2003, Chris Fehily, Windows XP, page 266:

     The density of gee-whizzery in Media Player makes the interface and controls rather cluttered , as you see in Figure 10.1.

   • 2013, John Webster, Animal Husbandry Regained:

     In any applied science it is important not to be seduced by 'gee-whizzery'. Every 'Gee Whiz!' should be accompanied by a 'So what?'

   • 2014, Stephen Brown, Open and Distance Learning:

     The technology need not be very sophisticated: printed materials for instance can be cost effective, as attested in the BT and Reuters case studies; or it may encompass the very latest 'gee-whizzery' of satellites (TSB), Intranet (Reuters), videoconferencing (Ulster), etc.