Go soak your head

[George Thompson]

It had never occurred to me that "soak" here might mean "hit".  I suppose it might.  I've always taken this to be an instruction to "go and submerge your head in a bucket of water".

GAT

George A. Thompson
Author of A Documentary History of "The African Theatre", Northwestern Univ. Pr., 1998, but nothing much lately.

----- Original Message -----
From: "Cohen, Gerald Leonard" <gcohen at MST.EDU>
Date: Thursday, November 13, 2008 3:35 pm
Subject: Re: Go soak your head
To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU

> Btw, is this "soak" in the sense "make completely wet" or in the sense
> "hit, strike"?
>
> Gerald Cohen
>
> ________________________________
>
> From: George Thompson, Thu 11/13/2008 9:18 AM
>
> It does not seem that the OED has an entry for this very useful expression.
>
>         He came out at the Little Drury, as one of the Sequin Opera
> Corps, was pelted, hissed and hooted off the stage.  ***  He was told
> to go home and "soak his head," with which he complied. . . .  ***  He
> is now the editor of a small, very weakly paper.
>         The Whip and Satirist of New York & Brooklyn, February 19,
> 1842, p. 3, col. 2
>
> GAT
>
> George A. Thompson
> Author of A Documentary History of "The African Theatre", Northwestern
> Univ. Pr., 1998, but nothing much lately.
>
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>
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