Put a sock in it

by JLS
for the GC

From today's World Wide Words, ed M. Quinion:

Q. I've heard a rumour, meaning I was unable to verify the source,
that the phrase "to put a sock in it" referred to early gramophones
that had no volume control. It is said that people who were annoyed
by the high decibels produced by these machines would suggest that
the person operating the player put a sock, rolled up into a ball,
inside the horn producing the sound. Seems like a good fit to me.
Any way this can be researched or verified? [Lou Jandera]

A. I can't give a copper-bottomed, guaranteed, incontrovertible
answer, but there's enough evidence to give a good pointer to the
real source.

The story about putting a sock in the horn of a gramophone has been
so widely reproduced in books that it's unsurprising people believe
it. It's a delightfully unexpected and convincing tale. The image
comes to mind instantly of some grumpy parent stuffing hosiery into
the horn to muffle the noise of the kids' records.

The difficulty, as so often with such stories, is the evidence. The
first examples appear in 1919, virtually simultaneously in the UK
and Australia:

The expression "Put a sock in it", meaning "Leave off
talking, singing or shouting".
[The Athenaeum (London), 8 Aug. 1919.]

"But if you want to see a racecourse - a real full-
sized dinkum top-hole racecourse I'm speaking of, mind
you - come along with me to Tasmania," chimed in the
small voice of a lad who was very fond of apples, "and I
will show you -" "Oh. dry up, Tassie; put a sock in
it."
[Western Mail (Perth, Australia), 23 Oct. 1919. In
number 5 of a series of articles entitled War-Time
Sketches, by Louis F Cox.]

The need in the first of these to define the expression suggests it
was then new in the UK. Both are rather late for it to be connected
to gramophones, which had by then been around for some time. I'd
also question whether pre-electric machines produced enough noise
to make it necessary to quieten them.

Another example provides a further pointer:

"I'm not miserable, corporal," said little Martlow:
"We're not dead yet. On'y I'm not fightin' for any ----
Beljums, see. One o' them ---- wanted to charge me five
frong for a loaf o' bread." "Well, put a sock in it.
We've 'ad enough bloody talk now."
[The Middle Parts of Fortune, by Frederic Manning,
1929. The novel is set on the Western Front in France in
1916, during the First World War, which Manning - an
Australian - experienced during his service with the
King's Shropshire Light Infantry. The text as he wrote it
could not be published in his lifetime because of the
authentic bad language it contained. I've expunged the
obscenities so this e-mail will not be trapped by spam
filters; the online and RSS versions are
unexpurgated.]

This and the previous citation strongly suggest that an origin
among servicemen in the First World War is most probable, and
explains how the expression got into Civvy Street simultaneously in
both Britain and Australia - it was carried to both by homecoming
soldiers.

There were several similar expressions around at the time. Eric
Partridge pointed to the slightly earlier "put a bung in it". The
similar "put a cork in it" existed, too. "It" in all three cases is
clearly the mouth.

As I said, it's impossible to be sure, but I'd put my money on its
having originally been First World War slang.

---- end of citation.

Griceian answer.

Or commentary.

Grice was obsessed with 'dictum' -- cfr. Italian 'indizio' -- a type of sign. Also with 'sign' (Italian 'segnum'). Most technically, Grice was obsessed with 'impiegato' (what is implied, implicatum), what is designed (italian, segnato) and so on.

Anything that was NOT 'designed' in some direct way Grice called an implicature.

E.g.

"You're the cream in my coffee", an 'indizio', or indirect sign for "I love you".

----

It's best then to connect these different strands in the fabric of Griceian philosophy: it connects with this dual relation,

x y

where one stands for the other -- sometimes factively, sometimes not.

When it comes to a common idiom of the type,

"put a sock in it",

as in,

"Put a sock in it!"

or, to avoid the problems of the imperative mode,

"She put a sock in it".

The problems are various.

Grice refers to

"x was caught in the grip of a vice"

"x may your friend, or not"

His example actually is:

"HE was caught in the grip of a vice"

which may refer to a male human OR a male animal (a male cat, say -- cfr. "curiosity killed the cat").

Grice notes that unless the designatum of 'he' is known, we do not know WHAT IS BEING SAID (the dictum or phrastic). I agree.

The same may be said about the 'it' of

"Put a sock in it".

----

Or not.

Seeing that there is so much controversy as to what is meant (what is said) by the idiom, one wonders how one can freely use it to implicate this rudeness or other.

Or not.

Cheers!