The official Smokey Stover page claims that “Notary Sojac” means “Merry Christmas” in Gaelic. The Irish version (Nollaig Shona) could possibly be morphed into that by violent wordplay, in the same way that “À toute à l’heure” became “Toodle-oo”, but it’s a bit of a stretch.
Welcome to the Boards. A link to the column is always appreciated.
“À toute à l’heure” becoming “toodle-oo” is at best just a wild guess, and it’s probably wrong.
Seeing as how Notary Sojac is so close to “Notary Public,” I find the “Merry Christmas” explanation a little hard to swallow.
foo!
Well, Smokey Stover was full of the most violent wordplay, as I recall, so that could make some sense, though Holman also lied a lot.
French À tout à l’heure (note tout rather than toute) has the advantage of sounding quite a bit like English toodle-oo and having the same idiomatic sense (“See you later”). It’s far from proven, but I agree with Evan Morris when he says it seems plausible.
But, Evan says, in his final summation,
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FWIW Nollaig shona is pronounced “nullig hunnah” or something thereabouts.
I’d never even heard of “Notary Sojac” until this moment. Where does it appear nowadays?
My father was a member of the National Cartoonist’s Society and personally asked Bill Holman (at my request) “What is the meaning/origin of ‘Notary Sojac’”.
My Dad then reported to me that Holman told him, “It’s just nonsense - something I made up - doesn’t mean anything”.
I tend to believe that is the true story on “Notary Sojac”. And - I also believe it does not diminish, by a grain’s weight, the fabulous genius of Bill Holman.
Personally, I’m just happy that people are actually discussing the substance of my article rather than the “republican dogma” line I threw in.
Notary Sojac is fourth
And in last place I believe it is
Yes, it is…Feetlebauuuuuum!
-Spike Jones, “William Tell Overture”
Along the same line as Notary Sojac is the cryptic “Clyde Diddit” from the old Archie comics. I don’t ever recall a Clyde character and it was never used in the context of a name anyway. Any ideas?
[Eeek! Zombie!
A zombie from 2 days ago? 
Peanuthead, google is your friend.
More there.
2007 was two days ago:confused:?
We’re less concerned about zombie threads in this forum than elsewhere.
The problem with resurrecting old threads is that the people who posted several years ago are often not around to read them (or not paying attention to them any more). This can be an issue in forums like the Pit or MPSIMS, but it’s not usually a difficulty here.
Hilarity N. Suze said:
We’re apparently looking at different things. I missed it was from 2007 when it showed up on Mar 28. Then it was off the page for 2 days before popping up on the 31, and then you declared “zombie”.