Granny Was A Union Goon

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The word "sabotage" comes from the practice by striking French railway workers of cutting the "sabot," the metal retaining shoe that held railroad tracks in place.

Sabotage goes back to Luddism: disgruntled farmers whose winter jobs in weaving, spinning etc were taken away by the first factories damaged the first machines by letting their wooden shoes (=sabots in French ) into the mechanism...or so i read.