APAD: Razzle-dazzle

Meaning:

   Razzle-dazzle is glamorous excitement; a spectacular or ostentatious display.

 

Background:

   The original `distract or confuse' meaning seems to have gone somewhat out of

   use. I has come across it before researching the phrase to write this piece.

 

   The expression was then always in the form of `give someone the

   razzle-dazzle', that is, confuse them. The earliest use that I can find of

   that sense of `razzle-dazzle' is the US newspaper The Saint Paul Globe, April

   1885:

 

     Sir: As you seem to be in earnest in your efforts to give someone the

     dazzle-dazzle...

 

   The expression very quickly came to be used with a more positive intent, that

   is, where `razzle-dazzle' was considered to be indicate enjoyment rather than

   deception. That's found in the Pennsylvania newspaper The Daily Republican,

   June 1887:

 

     A meeting at City Hall resolved to celebrate the Fourth [of July] by a

     general old-time razzle-dazzle.  .

 

   I can't think of a better picture to portray razzle-dazzle than the

   flamboyant, energetic ball of excitement that was Little Richard.

 

- www.phrases.org.uk [edited]

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To my cynical ear, the term still sounds distinctively sarcastic. The

razzle-dazzle of commercials during news breaks often triggers in me a physical

response. I keep wondering how primitive gullible suckers the admen must have

thought us consumers that they could just put on the screen the images of some

star, a few pretty faces, or some exotic scenary while dangling a shiny object

and expect we be hooked. It's insulting and I have to mute the player right away.