Where Did We Get the Phrase “Put a Sock In It”?

When someone says, “Put a sock in it”, they are somewhat emphatically saying, “Be quiet!”. Where did the phrase come from? More to the point, put a sock in what?

The saying has nothing to do with gagging someone, as much as that might seem like a good idea at times. The phrase came into use within perhaps 10-12 years after 1877. You might wonder what 1877 had to do with it.

In that year, Thomas Edison began to experiment with the idea of making a recording of a person’s voice. His notion was actually to record telephone calls so a message could be relayed more efficiently, without writing it down. In the process, he invented the forerunner of the phonograph.

His invention was improved upon within about a decade and it consisted of basically a cylinder that rotated, a stylus, and a big horn, much as in the picture. This led to the phrase. More explanation is needed? Okay, here goes:

The early phonograph, which was produced around 1886 and was called the Graphophone, had a major drawback. It had no volume control. In other words, it was loud. The only way to make the sound softer was to stuff something into the horn, to quiet the sound that emanated from the device.

Thus, a great way to quiet the sound of the graphophone was to literally ‘put a sock in it’. A sock was neither too big nor too small to work.