Claims: in etymology of idioms

2 claims
Narrow claims Pick any combination. Press Enter to apply typed text.
Clear filters
Speaker
Target
Topic
Certainty
Claim text
Date range
16 Oct 2019
The idiom 'his name is Mudd' originates from Dr. Samuel Mudd's involvement in the assassination of Abraham Lincoln.

Phil Mudd's great, great-grandfather out of Virginia. Reportedly helped kill Lincoln. The name became known as Mudd. Sure. That's where that comes from. Does it? Your name will be Mudd. It was a pun in the newspapers at the time. And the progeny of Mudd, Dr. Mudd says they're going to kill the president and kill his supporters.

16 Oct 2019
The idiom 'his name is Mudd' predates the Lincoln assassination and does not originate from Dr. Samuel Mudd.

Regardless, this man being the source of the term, his name is Mudd, is absolutely not true. Lincoln was assassinated in 1865, and people who study idioms and linguistics have traced the expression, his name is Mudd, at least as far back as an 1823 book from Britain called A Dictionary of the Turf, which includes the line, quote, trans-exclusionary reaction. No, never mind. It's spelled differently. Okay. It includes the line, quote, Mudd, a stupid twaddling fellow, and his name is Mudd. The expression almost certainly even predates that passage, but that's one of the earliest definitive written published sources. 1823, long before the assassination.