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Script: He was never the same after them oil men hornswoggled him out of his farm. He became a road agent and got himself a belly full of lead for his troubles. The verb hornswoggle was certainly not exclusive to the American old west but it was used there and may have some origin in cattle ranching. To hornswoggle means to cheat or trick someone; to deceive them; to bamboozle them or con them. It could also mean nonsense. A common idiom during the 1800s was “Well, I’ll be hornswoggled!“ Other interesting words for this are to buffalo someone or bulldoze them, both of which can mean to win by intimidating or by tricking or baffling someone. A synonym for hornswoggle is hoodwink and, if you are a fan of the Wizard of Oz books, you may be familiar with humbug as the wizard was a humbug wizard who hornswoggled people into believing he had powers he didn’t possess. Humbug, like hornswoggle, can be another word for nonsense. Another great word for word for nonsense, foolery, or shenanigans is skullduggery. Tom Sawyer got up to some skulduggery when he fooled another kid into whitewashing the fence for him. Nobody really knows the origin of the word hornswoggle. It is found in print as early as 1829 and seems to be a true creation of the west. It is perhaps a combination of horn and waggle, which later became woggle. One suggestion is that it has to do with a steer waggling its horns to try to get free of a rope. The patent medicine men of old, with their traveling medicine shows, were nothing more than hornswogglers. They came to be known as snake oil salesmen, collectively. Here are some examples of hornswoggle used in the movies: “And so I said come and live with me in peace and safety away from all the Wangdoodles and Hornswogglers and Snozzwangers and rotten Vermicious Knids.“ — Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, 1971 “Hell, I was born here and I was raised here and goddamn it, I’m going to die here! And no sidewinder, bushwhacking, hornswoggling cracker croaker, is going to ruin my biscuit-cutter!“ — Blazing Saddles, 1974 “Do you know, I had a big house, two barns, three outhouses until that goldanged railroad hornswoggled me?“ — Jesse James, 1939
