Put a sock in it

The charming story of putting socks into the loudspeaker tubes of old gramophones because they did not have volume controls has been exposed as folk etymology. The first citation for this expression is 1919, rather late in the day for a gramophone volume control. The consensus is that it is WWI slang, probably Australian, for stop talking or ‘leave off’ and in this regard is similar to the earlier expression, put a cork in it. Stuffing a sock or a cork in someone’s mouth would of course be an excellent way of shutting them up.