Æsop

The bounded Waters, / Should lift their boſomes higher then the Shores, / And make a ſoppe of all this ſolid Globe:

[…]Hee it is to whom I ſhall giue a ſoppe, when I haue dipped it.

[…]Sops in Wine, (Quantitie for Quantitie,) inebriate more, than Wine of it ſelfe.

The suggested petrification of the ship is a sop to gratify Poseidon and compensate him for a concession--the Phaeacians will not be cut off from the sea.

Ill Nature, in fine, is not to be Cur’d with a Sop; but on the contrary, Quarrelſome Men, as well as Quarrelſome Currs are worſe for fair Uſage.

That agreement, with its lofty promises of “one country, two systems,” was a fig leaf, as most knew at the time — a sop to Western consciences guilty for condemning the people of Hong Kong to their ultimate fate as wards of Beijing. What is happening today is exactly what was predicted and exactly what Chinese leaders intended. Our outrage, while appropriate, is also embarrassing.

Conservatives have long had it out for Gay, Harvard’s first Black president, whose appointment they viewed as a sop to progressive diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives.

Here, in Barcelona, your streets are alive at night, you walk, you eat for hours, you interact, you share your minds. Americans watch their 91 channels of superficial satellite sop. The whole country and everything you've ever believed about it really functions only on the surface.