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]
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
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.
