They were the last words Abraham Lincoln heard before John Wilkes Booth assassinated him: “Well, I guess I know enough to turn you inside-out, old gal—you sockdologizing old man-trap!” Booth knew that this line from the play Our American Cousin would get a big laugh, so he chose that moment to pull the trigger. A Wisconsin listener wants to know the meaning and origin of that curious word, sockdologizing. If you want to read the whole play, which has some silly wordplay and a dopey riddle or two, it’s online at Project Gutenberg. This is part of a complete episode.
More from this show
When you’re talking about the location of an inanimate object, is it okay to say that it lives there, as in The peanut butter lives in that cabinet or The flashlight lives on that shelf? Strictly speaking, of course, that object isn’t...
Sean in Oneonta, New York, says that when he was growing up in New Jersey, his family would pile in the car and set off on a surprise adventure, whether a short distance or long, and the kids would be told only that they were going on Buxtehude...