A: This is a question hopefully waiting for an answer.

Why? Because "Our American Cousin" has a very important role in United States history.

It would be interesting to see the play, or communicate with someone who has seen it. There is one line in the play that is the catalyst for macabre drama.

Q: What does sockdologize mean?

A: The word is not in the dictionary, but the computer always comes through.

"Sockdologize" was a slang term which became very popular in the United States during the 1850's and 1860's, and is still used in some parts of the country to this day. It means a forceful or decisive blow, a finisher, something that ends, or settles a matter and leaves nothing else to follow, a knockdown blow, a decisive overwhelming finish, reply argument, conclusive remark, or blow, which leaves no possible response.

"Sockdologize" is not a work you hear every day in the Bootheel, or Northeast Arkansas. But we might often hear or see a variation of it. Considering the computer definition, doesn't it make common sense that the expressions "He gave me a sock in the jaw," or "Sock-it-to-me," came out of "sockdologize?"

Sockdologizing is also an important word in United States history.

Q: What does "You sockdologizing old mantrap" mean in United States history?

A: They were the last words Abraham Lincoln ever heard.

Sometimes the lesser known facts of history can be fascinating.

The date was April 14, 1865. President Abraham Lincoln and his wife, Mary, were at Ford's Theatre in Washington to see a performance of "Our American Cousin," a well known comedy of the times.

Lincoln was in high spirits. Richmond had fallen. Robert E. Lee's splendid Army of Northern Virginia had surrendered at Appomattox, and the Civil War was coming to a close.

At act 3, scene 2 of the play, an actor named Harry Hawk was standing alone on the stage. He was to deliver a line that always caused an uproar of laughter.

Standing in the shadows of the Lincoln box was John Wilkes Booth, an actor who knew the play well. He was holding a single shot Derringer that propelled a .44-caliber ball.

When Harry Hawk said the line "You sockdologizing old mantrap," the audience roared, and Booth fired the ball into Lincoln's brain. Those were the last words Lincoln was ever to hear.

Another interesting fact of the Lincoln assassination was Laura Keene, an actress who had performed the leading role in "Our American Cousin" over a thousand times.

When Lincoln was shot, Laura Keene somehow made her way through the frenzied mob to the president's box. There the attending doctor, Doctor Leale, allowed her to cradle Lincoln's head in her lap until he was taken across the street to the Peterson boarding house where he died a few hours later.

Laura Keene's act was a dramatic, but useless gesture, and one that would have never been allowed had the jealous Mary Lincoln not been in a state of hysteria.

Here's one to think about in terms of modern times: As John Wilkes Booth fled to escape his crime he was riding a fast horse, and hoping to make it into Maryland, and then into the deep south. He was riding ahead of the news. So whomever he encountered along the way would have no knowledge that Lincoln had been killed.

Riding ahead of the news would be something impossible today. Not on a jet plane -- not on a rocket ship. Nothing could go ahead of the news today.

Like the John F. Kennedy assassination, the murder of Abraham Lincoln was loaded with questions, some of them unanswered to this day.

One mystery of the times was what was referred to as the "lost week."

It took 12 days for man hunters to track down and kill John Wilkes Booth and arrest co-conspirator, David Herold. They were always on the trail, but there were five days that remained unaccounted for. Where were Booth and Herold during those five days?

Eighteen years after Booth was in his grave and the other conspirators hanged, a former Confederate agent named Thomas Jones confessed that for those five days he had hidden Booth and Herold in a pine thicket, where he brought them food. Jones gave a detailed account.

Although the Lincoln assassination was generally condemned in the South, Thomas Jones became a hero in southern circles because he could have collected a $100,000 reward by turning the assassins in.

Can you imagine what $100,000 would have meant in 1865? Jones left an estate of $181.60.

The Answer Man will appear on occasion in the Daily Dunklin Democrat, and will provide answers to various and sundry questions about local people, etc. Readers are invited to submit their queries to The Answer Man by e-mailing them to bhunt@dddnews.com.