who the heck is Gordon Bennett and why is his name funny
Common in my youth, I think it is falling out of use.
Agreed that it seems to be less common now. A boy in my year at school was known throughout his school career as 'Gordon' because his name was Bennett. I can't even remember his real first name now. The rumour was that his father really was called Gordon, which seemed to us too far fetched to be true.
Gordon Bennet = gorblimey = God blind me
Just so. As many euphemisms, you keep the first bit "gor.." but then complete it with something else. So why just did ending it with ....don Bennett become so widespread?
Many of these odd phrases have competing explanations and ne'er the truth be known. I sometimes wonder whether in fact they came about precisely because they could be parsed in several ways, and therefore appealed to different people for different reasons. Or even became popular precisely because they were independently invented from different origins and then converged.
The Australian general story is what I heard first. Although Nutrax's date argument makes it look like just another piece of crap folk etymology, which I'm perfectly prepared to believe, we should also realise that he distinguished himself at Gallipoli in the First World War, another disaster.
It's not just the Gor, its the initial b of the second word. Gordon Macrae or Gordie Howe wouldn't have worked so well.
#2 - before the films LoTR wasn't that well known, and for some reason Frodo doesn't appear to be an uncommon name in Dutch
for some reason Frodo doesn't appear to be an uncommon name in Dutch
You mean it looks like something that might be a Dutch name? Because it's not. Before reading the link above, I had never in my life met, or read about, or heard of, a Dutch person named Frodo.