The SoBros Mailbag 246: Lolli-Gagging

It's lunch time on a Friday. The SoBros Mailbag is here.

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Let’s face it – every day we are routinely bombarded with questions. When you’re an emerging media company in Nashville, people just want to know what your opinions are on everything. It’s only natural. And, since our duty is to serve the people, well, we have no choice but to be present. That’s the SoBro Way. Also, aren’t mailbags just a barrel of laughs anyway? Welcome to the newest weekly recurring feature up in this bitch: The SoBros Mailbag. As always, hit us with those mailbag questions @SoBrosNetwork on Twitter, email ’em to me anonymously at thesobrosnetwork@gmail.com. And, holy shit, I need to update this terrible intro paragraph that I’ve been using literally ever since I started writing this column…

Question, from Ryan on Instagram:

What’s up with the phrase “lolli-gagging”?

Answer:

I love the nature of the SoBros Mailbag. One week, I’ll get 15 questions and have to cut some from the actual column to keep it under 2,000 words. The next week, I have one person asking me “what’s up with the phrase “lolli-gagging”? That’s just the nature of the beast, I suppose. Nonetheless, it does give us the opportunity to really dig into this topic and learn about it.

Before I look it up, I’ll tell you what I think is up with the word – my guess is that it’s really old, and was probably meant to indicate someone is being childish….like “you’re out there gagging on that lollipop you stupid fucking baby” kinda deal. I don’t know why we landed on ‘gagging’ instead of ‘sucking’ but those were different times, I imagine. Maybe children gagged on lollis quite a bit back in the day, I don’t know.

Okay, I looked it up and actually oh damn yeah, it is kind of sexual…also, it’s spelled “lollygagging.” Who’d have known? Per Michigan Radio:

“Lollygag,” also known historically as “lallygag,” comes into English in the mid-19th century meaning to dawdle. However, at that time, “lollygag” also meant to fool around. Yes, that kind of fooling around.”

Damn, man – I’ve been sayin “me and the boys were out lollygagging” my whole life. My granny probably thought we were all takin’ turns fuckin’ each other. Shit. I gotta start livin’ clean so I can get to heaven and clear that up with both of ’em. Also, how and why has this phrase stuck around for so long? When did it change meanings? That’s a drastic swing from ‘fooling around with each other’s genitalia’ to ‘generally wasting time.’ Sometimes, the English language just don’t make no damn sense.

Keep the questions coming – catch y’all next week!

Stoney Keeley is the Editor in Chief of The SoBros Network, and a Dogs Playing Poker on velvet connoisseur. He is a strong supporter of Team GSD, #BeBetter, and ‘Minds right, asses tight.’ “Big Natural” covers the Tennessee Titans, Nashville, Yankee Candle, and a whole wealth of nonsense. Follow on Twitter @StoneyKeeley.

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