goshwowboyoboy

Blend of gosh +‎ wow +‎ boy +‎ oh boy. Derived from a caption ("Gosh! Wow! Boyohboy! The mosta and the besta!") used in the July 10, 1939 issue of Time magazine, reprinted from a letter in the August 1939 issue of science fiction pulp magazine Thrilling Wonder Stories, in an article about the first World Science Fiction Convention, aka Nycon I, held in New York in July 1939.

goshwowboyoboy (comparative more goshwowboyoboy, superlative most goshwowboyoboy)

1. (dated, fandom slang, derogatory) Of or pertaining to a juvenile overenthusiasm; naive; uncritical.
   • 1950 September, Rick Sneary, “The Editorial”, in Spacewarp‎, volume 7, number 6 (whole number 42), page 2:

     I am one of the few fans that still have a copy of Spacewarp, No. 1, Vol. 1. As a first issue it was about as sickly a mag as you could ask for, and the fellow that was editing it sounded like the ultimate in "goshwowoboyoboy" new fans. I frankly expected it to be the last issue, and didn't subscribe.

   • 1999 September 18, Reed Andrus, “Re: *New Online Literary Journal! (In which Pelan invokes Sturgeon's Law...)”, in rec.arts.horror.written‎ (Usenet), message-ID <37E2E6DD.E4B68042@home.com>:

     The names you cite are as familiar to me as they are to you, and as fondly remembered. But I also remember the crap, and the naive goshwowboyoboy attitude of fellow neo-phans. I remember it well because I suffered from it.

   • 2003, Mike Resnick, “Forgotten Treasures”, in Resnick at Large, →ISBN, page 56:

     I'm letting one of the plot kittens out of the bag, but the book is such a delight that it'll do no serious harm if I tell you that it concerns a pulp science fiction editor who finds himself in a rip-roaring alien-plagued super-hero naked-heroine universe that exists in the mind of one of his goshwowboyoboy teen-aged readers.

• goshwow