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The playwright seems to have invented a neologism derived from American slang of the time: A “sockdologer” meant a truth delivered as a defining moment in a situation, an intellectual coup de grace.

But his “Ring Tailed Doodle Sockdologer” and his “Famous Michigan Mermaid. Half Elephant and Half Sturgeon” were singular beings, and collectible for that reason alone.

The answer was a sockdologer, and the representative of their lordships, after this brief exposition of sea law, made no more interruptions.”

Wen he talks Union to me, an all the time means despotism, I allus feel jest like haulin up my old hickory, an givin him a sockdologer.

"That must've bin a sockdologer of a dose the Surgeon gave me," he muttered to himself.