The Yellow Kid comic strip, by R.F. Outcault, 14 November 1897, “How the Goat Got ‘Kilt Entirely!’” showing Hogan’s goat butting a cigar-store Indian and being knocked unconscious (not literally killed)
5 January 2021
The phrase like Hogan’s goat refers to something that is faulty, messed up, or stinks like a goat. The phrase is a reference to R.F. Outcault’s seminal newspaper comic Hogan’s Alley, which debuted in 1895. The title of the strip changed to The Yellow Kid the following year. (See also Yellow Journalism https://www.wordorigins.org/big-list-entries/yellow-journalism). Among its characters, the comic featured a goat that was always butting things and otherwise causing trouble.
The comic was enormously popular, as seen by this description of social event in Butte Montana on 19 June 1899:
About 500 people assembled in Hibernia hall at Centerville last Monday evening to enjoy themselves in “Hogan’s Alley.” They had their “habits on,” and a nicer time was never seen in Butte. The parade started through the alley with “Hogan, Hogan’s goat, the Yellow Kid and Liz” in the lead, and every other character known in the alley behind them.
Hogan’s goat quickly developed into a slang term for someone who interferes with another’s affairs or otherwise “butts in,” as seen in this pair of uses from 1905. From Frank Hutchison’s humor book The Philosophy of Johnnie the Gent:
“Well we’re over in Casey's the other night—me an' the Wise Cracker an' the Handshaker. Say, where did that Mr. Handshaker ever get the idea that he was a class A rough house performer, hey?
“We was tippin' in the brew pretty lively when in blows 'bout half a dozen o' them long haired college kids, near every one o' them big enough to sic onto Jeffries, an all 'em feelin' pretty good an’ makin' plenty o' noise. You know they're pretty handy at that. Well, the original Hogan's goat, Mr. Wise Crackin' Kid, has to butt in wit’ them. They get to talkin' football, an' the Wise Cracker drags over the Handshaker.
And the Kentucky newspaper the Lexington Herald of 19 September 1905 details this courtroom exchange between two lawyers:
There was a series of hot tilts between Attorneys Healy and Chas. Wilby, in one of which Healy declared:
“You’re like Hogan’s goat, Mr. Wilby; you’re always butting in.”
“That’s what I’m here for—to butt in,” retorted Wilby.
Eventually, Hogan’s goat came to stand for anything that was obnoxious, bad, or failed. This article from the Washington Post of 9 April 1940 compares aging racehorses with Hogan’s goat:
The fans will love it. They don’t know a thoroughbred from Hogan’s goat. They think Ormondale was the name of an Egyptian king and that Sir Barton is a Scotch whisky. All they want to do is put up two dollars and get to one or better. They wouldn’t care if they were watching camels?”
And this one from the Miami Daily News of 15 February 1953 laments the state of affairs in the Florida-International (F-I) baseball league:
The whole batch has been shaken from losses; there is a slight chance, however, that the chiefs realize their indians are liable to die of malnutrition if some of their own butt-headed policies aren’t changed to fit circumstances.
Otherwise, the F-I will be deader than Hogan’s goat before July 1.
Hogan’s goat probably hit its peak in 1965 when William Alfred’s play of that name premiered in New York, the original cast of which featured the young Faye Dunaway. The play ran for two years. But since then, the term has faded from use, and while you can still find occasional current uses of it, it mainly appears when one is reading material from early in the twentieth century.
Sources:
Hutchison, Frank. The Philosophy of Johnnie the Gent. Chicago: M. A. Donahue & Company, 1905, 50. HathiTrust Digital Archive.
Green’s Dictionary of Slang, 2020, s.v. Hogan’s goat, n.
“In Society.” Butte Weekly Miner (Montana), 22 June 1899, 1. NewsBank: America’s Historical Newspapers.
Internet Off-Broadway Database. The Lucille Lortel Foundation. 2020.
McLemore, Morris. “Gallant Rust Tests Golf.” Miami Daily News, 15 February 1953, 1-D. ProQuest Historical Newspapers.
“Mrs. Madden.” Lexington Herald (Kentucky), 19 September 1905, 6.
Phillips, H. I., “The Once Over.” Washington Post, 9 April 1940, 11. ProQuest Historical Newspapers.