I occasionally come upon an unfamiliar word or phrase that particularly tickles my fancy. Today's example, courtesy of an old and well-read friend, is sockdolager.
A sockdolager is a hard hit, knockout or finishing blow or remark; something exceptional or outstanding.
As in Mark Twain's Adventures of Huckelberry Finn: "The thunder would go rumbling and grumbling away,..and then rip comes another flash and another sockdolager."
J.R. Bartlett's Dictionary of Americanisms (1848) offers us another related usage, one hopes for the sake of the fish among us referring to an obsolete instrument: "Socdolager, a patent fish~hook, having two hooks which close upon each other by means of a spring as soon as the fish bites."
I discovered from the Online Etymology Dictionary that sockdologising "was nearly the last word President Abraham Lincoln heard. During the performance of Tom Taylor's 'Our American Cousin,' assassin John Wilkes Booth (who knew the play well) waited for the line 'Well, I guess I know enough to turn you inside out, you sockdologising old man-trap,' and as the audience laughed, Booth fired the fatal shot."
Another use of the term is in a tale told by Davy Crockett during his years as a member of Congress. He characterized as sockdolagers two comments addressed to him by a learned farmer and constituent, one Horatio Bunce, who persuaded Crockett that he had inadvertently violated the Constitution by his support of a bill passed by the House of Representatives in the preceding year. It's a good story, and may be found here.
Davy Crockett