“I am aware, Mr. Trenchard, you are not used to the manners of good society, and that, alone, will excuse the impertinence of which you have been guilty,” says Mrs. Mountchessington.
In response, Asa says, “Don’t know the manners of good society, eh? Well, I guess I know enough to turn you inside out, old gal — you sockdologizing old man-trap.”
The lines are from Act 3, Scene 2 of “Our American Cousin” by Tom Taylor. This week in history, on April 14, 1865, upon hearing the word “sockdologizing,” President Abraham Lincoln was shot and killed by John Wilkes Booth inside Ford’s Theater in Washington, D.C.
Before we dive into why “sockdologizing” was one of the last words Lincoln ever heard, I’d like to thank Michael Stevens for sharing this knowledge. In his YouTube shorts, Stevens goes over many different facets of history that are left to the niche corners of the internet, yet this subtle detail brings Lincoln’s final moments so much life. You can find the short on the Vsauce channel.
You may be wondering: Why would Booth sit awkwardly through three whole acts before making his move? Why not pull the trigger as soon as he had a clear line of sight on Lincoln? After all, knowing you’re about to shoot somebody likely doesn’t weigh lightly on the mind.
The answer is remarkably simple. Booth was attempting to hide the ringing of a gunshot amidst the play’s main punchline. You likely didn’t fall on the floor laughing at “sockdologizing,” but the word was the epicenter of a great line that Booth knew would prompt a rapturous audience reaction. At that moment, he pulled the trigger.
It’s strange to read the lines after knowing their severity. It’s as if you can feel the moment —– even if just a little — when Lincoln met his killer. But what does “sockdologizing” even mean?
For a “sockdologizing” amateur historian such as myself, this question is a tough one. Many argue it’s simply made up for the play: a word that has no real intended meaning other than to make Asa, who says it, appear like a country bumpkin. That interpretation is valid, yet it also misses much of the prior context of the word’s use.
According to the 1859 Dictionary of Americanisms, “socdolager” is an alteration of the word doxology, which is the closing stanza in songs sung in religious services. In that sense, you can think of a “socdolager” as a dismissal or ending. Yet, the meaning of the word wasn’t so civil.
It came to be interpreted as the historical equivalent of the “It’s Over 9000!” meme and the Super Saiyan punch. If you saw your friend get hit by one of those powerful blows, he got hit by a socdolager. Or in some other versions, the person dealing the blow was the socdolagizer.
This original interpretation was then fleshed out in both the Oxford and Merriam-Webster dictionaries. Interestingly, the Oxford Dictionary describes the word “sockdolager” to mean either a “forceful blow” or “an exceptional person or thing.”
In some cruel twist of linguistics, you could now describe Lincoln’s assassination as the sockdolagizing of a sockdolager. It would be hard to find a more exceptional person in such high standing in American history that was taken down by such a powerful blow.
And the crowd’s laughter suddenly burst into screams. I’ll see you next week in history. Thank you again to Vsauce for the inspiration for this week’s issue!