Green’s Dictionary of Slang

(US) a pretence of emotion, an appeal to someone’s sympathies.

1895		Pittsburgh Press (PA) 11 Mar. 5/4: Now Hanlow is doing the tear-and-sob act.
1914		E. O’Neill The Movie Man in Ten ‘Lost’ Plays (1995) 190: She was doing a sob act on one of the benches in that little park.
1915		S. Ford Torchy, Private Sec. 185: She’s doin’ the sob act genuine and earnest.
1928		Dly Press (Newport, VA) 5 Aug. 2/4: The lad returned to the broken bottle on the sidewalk and [...] ‘pulled the sob act’.
1936		Cincinnati Enquirer (OH) 16 Oct. 19/3: ‘Sob Act’ is put on by Crowe.
1941		Times-Indep. (Moab, UT) 14 Aug. 3/3: She knew Lou would most likely faint with fright if her hostess put on a sob act.
1979		Austin American-Statesman (TX) 20 Oct. n.p.: Alan fell for Amy’s sob act.

(US) any form of mawkish, sentimental fiction, aimed at a female market.

1918

T. Thursday ‘Words & Music’ in Top-Notch 15 June 🌐 She was trying to extract a few tears from the latest sob book.

1. (US) a sentimental man.

1914		J. London letter 23 Sept. in Letters (1966) 430: All I can say is that he is a weak-brother, a sob-brother .
1927		Dayon Dly News (OH) 19 June 78/1: The great majority of these protests came not from sentimental girls [...] but rom sentimental men — from the ‘sob brothers’.
1939		Missoulian (MT) 16 July 5/8: One sob brother describes it vivdly through his tears.

2. (US) a male version of the newspaper sob sister.

1919		N.Y. Trib. 19 Dec. 11/4: The sob sisters of every newspaper in New York with here and there a sob brother.
1964		Democrat Argus (Caruthersville, MO) 4 Dec. 11/2: Sob-Sister vs Sob-Brother [...] What makes you think that you, just a man, can write a sob-sister [...] column .
1990		Tampa Bay Times 28 Mar. 38/2: ‘Sob brother’ puts new spin on newspaper advice column.

(US) one who plays on the public’s emotion to elicit sympathy for a cause; also as the story that they tell (see cite 1934).

1914		Wellington Jrnl (KS) 25 Aug. 2/2: We have a [...] sob specialist, an insanity expert and a little cuss who knows the law.
1914		Columbus Republican (IN) 31 Dec. 4/3: Hearst crowds all the sob raisers off the back page.
1919		S. Graham A Private in the Guards 66: Finally the ‘sob-raiser’, as the Americans called him, made the following appeal [etc].
1928		Austin American Statesman (TX) 5 Nov. 4/2: Victims never count. They never figure in the sob stories of the sob specialists.
1934		Sydney Morn. Herald 25 Oct. 36/2: She [...] spins a real sob-raiser of a yarn.
1937		News (Frederick, MD) 3 Sept. 11/4: This Madame X business have [sic] pretty well stamped her as a sob specialist, She is a fine crier.

(US) a journalist specializing in ‘human interest’ stories.

1912		Buffalo Courier (NY) 12 Feb. 4/5: The sob reporter wrote a yarn that was designed to make you cry.
1919		Hot Springs New Era (AK) 13 Oct. 6/3: The chorus man is the worthless brother of a sob sister reporter on a daily paper.
1921		Star Trib. (Minneapolis, MN) 25 Dec. 17/1: From ‘sob’ reporters and false alarms [etc].
1929		McGraw-Hill Book Notes 11 Feb. n.p.: The story in that announcement [...] looked too much like the efforts of a newspaper sob-reporter [DA].
1989		Detroit Free Press (MI) 2 July 83/1: She was the last of the old sob sister reporters, as tough and salty as her male colleagues.

1. an advice columnist, usu. a woman; a woman journalist.

1908		Tobacco Leaf 45 12/3: The question of women being permitted to smoke in public continues to agitate the ‘Sob Sister’.
1919		O.O. McIntyre New York Day by Day n.d. [synd. col.] Miss Greeley Smith [...] was the first of what flippant writers choose to call Sob Sisters.
1929		S. Ornitz Haunch Paunch and Jowl 211: Barney interested him in the human-interest stories of the hardships of the needle-workers, and a sob sister was assigned to accompany Esther through the homes of the starving garment-workers.
1938		J.E. Hoover Persons in Hiding 190: It is the plaint of many sob-sisters.
1946		H.A. Smith Rhubarb 124: Hard-bitten sob sisters and sardonic feature writers.
1953		A.J. Liebling Honest Rainmaker (1991) 120: Annie Laurie, the famous sob sister, long identifed with the Hearstian press.
1960		H.S. Thompson Letter 26 Aug. in Proud Highway (1997) 226: I don’t subscribe to the theory that every traffic death is a social tragedy or a sob-sister’s field day.

2. attrib. use of sense 1.

1920		Alliance Herald (NE) 2 Jan. 1/1: William Reisenweaver, the seventeen-year-old muderer, has given out an interview [...] The Omaha Daily News carries [it] as a feature story [...] written in the most approved sob-sister style.
1964		L. Hansberry Sign in Sidney Brustein’s Window in Three Negro Plays (1969) I i: The old uptown sob sister credo.
1978		J. Krantz Scruples 93: Now it was just another bit of Pablum, old-fashioned sob-sister stuff.

3. by ext. of sense 1, a liberal, a ‘do-gooder’.

1923		J. Fishman Crucibles of Crime 160: I was jeered at and sneered at as a sentimentalist and ‘sob sister’.
1936		L. Duncan Over the Wall 90: It was not, therefore, an expression of mere maudlin sentiment of law-breakers by modern sob-sisters.
1958		C. Himes Real Cool Killers (1969) 133: We’d have caught holy hell from all the sob sisters, male and female, [...] if those punks had turned out to be innocent pranksters.
1972		E. Grogan Ringolevio 157: The crowd of people [...] were not a bunch of sob-sisters, breast-beaters or hand-wringers.
2009		(con. 1960s) J. Ellroy Blood’s a Rover 18: Dwight deployed Wayne Senior in anti-Klan mail-fraud ops, a sop to sob sisters at Justice.

4. a woman, occas. a man, given to tearfulness; also attrib.

1931		(con. 1920s) C.W. Willemse Behind The Green Lights 321: Cigarettes, magazines and candy sent to you by ‘sob sisters’.
1966		C. Stead Cotters’ England (1980) 237: A sobsister he called me. Me!
1974		‘P.B. Yuill’ Hazell Plays Solomon (1976) 37: Anybody could tell she was no sob-sister.
1981		J. Wambaugh Glitter Dome (1982) 130: I’m getting sick a all this sob-sister shit anyway.
2001		(con. 1964–8) J. Ellroy Cold Six Thousand 104: Don’t employ Ward J. Littell. He’s a drunk. He’s a sob sister. He’s a Communist.

5. (US Und.) a beggar (of either sex) who attempts to play on people’s emotions to elicit money.

1949

Monteleone Criminal Sl. (rev. edn).

(US) a generic term for journalists specializing in ‘human interest’ stories.

1912

G.M. Hyde Newspaper Reporting 236: The search for human interest material is a modification of the ‘sob squad’ work of the sensational papers, on more delicate lines [DA].

1. a pitiful tale, which may reduce the listener to tears whether it has any basis in truth or is designed merely for felonious purposes.

1916		Out West July 15/1: Didja see what Ripley did t’ that sob story of mine? [DA].
1923		D. Hammett ‘The Second-Story Angel’ in Nightmare Town (2001) 217: All primed to listen to a sob story?
1931		C.B. Yorke ‘Snowbound’ in Gangster Stories Oct. n.p.: ‘Search him,’ I ordered, not wanting to hear his sob story.
1933		C. Himes ‘His Last Day’ in Coll. Stories (1990) 299: He had always been a sucker for a good sob story.
1946		Mezzrow & Wolfe Really the Blues 89: The damsel-in-distress sob-story had me buckling on my shining armor.
1953		R. Carlton ‘Hophead Homicide’ in Mobsters Feb. n.p.: Drunken sailors [...] fall for the sob music, the soft looks, and the short con.
1955		E. Hunter Blackboard Jungle 50: I won’t listen to sob stories about absences.
1960		D. Abse House of Cowards (1967) 51: Well, if you want a sob story she’s got one.
1985		J. Sullivan ‘As One Door Closes’ Only Fools and Horses [TV script] Listen, you want to hear a sob story I will tell you a sob story!
1991		(con. 1920s) O.D. Brooks Legs 153: Sob stories are not my meat.
1996		P. Beatty White Boy Shuffle 84: He tired of a debtor’s sob story on why that wseek’s payments were late.
2006		C. Marriner Southern Style 161: I’m a reasonable judge, and ’is sob story were convincin.
2021		T. Pluck Boy from County Hell 72: ‘All I get in here are sob stories and buckra who done fucked up so bad their own won’t give ’em bond’.
2021		C. Hammer Opal Country 400: ‘You didn’t buy it? His sob story?’.

2. attrib. use of sense 1.

1994		M. Ribowsky Don’t Look Back 178: [T]his sob-story scenario.
2000		Indep. Rev. 22 Jan. 5: Not that Fox has in any way colluded with the media’s sob-story presentation of his affliction.

1. distressing facts, stories etc, often used to obtain sympathy and poss. money too.

1912		T.A. Dorgan in Zwilling TAD Lex. (1993) 75: Say Harry Couldn’t you use your influence with the judge and get him to let me off the jury just for one day — Well — I’ll give him an earfull of sob stuff and ask him.
1913–14		E. O’Neill The Web in Ten ‘Lost’ Plays (1995) 68: I’m sick of listenin’ to that sob stuff.
1925		N. Lucas Autobiog. of a Thief 234: I’m going to ‘put it across’ the judge – hand out the ‘sob-stuff’.
1933		‘Goat’ Laven Rough Stuff 92: I didn’t try to pull any sob-stuff on this dick.
1945		(con. 1919) R. Westerby Mad in Pursuit 43: Feature bits, sob stuff, human interest. The same sort of bilge.
1958		F. Norman Bang To Rights 24: The old sob stuff; they see through it, but they love it just the same.
1969		R. Rendell Best Man To Die (1981) 116: Cut the sob stuff.
1983		W.F Marshall ‘Proem’ in Livin’ in Drumlister 1: This Muse of mine has not supplied / Sob-stuff about my own inside.

2. attrib. use of sense 1.

c.1939		B. Bennett ‘Sobstuff Sister’ in Billy Bennett’s Third Budget 18: Sal was a sobstuff sister, / On the pictures she’d shed tears galore.
1950		A. Christie Murder Is Announced (1958) 165: I visualized a kind of sob stuff approach.

(Aus.) the eyes, when filled with tears.

1889

Dead Bird (Sydney) 17 Aug. 3/1: The following day jerking his sob works condoling with a corpse.