Your name is Mud!

So the last time I came across this phrase was back when I was 10 and reading ‘Horrid Henry’; not exactly the most common phase used today but there was a really cool legend behind the phase that I was told as a bedtime story by my Godfather.

So, as we know, Abraham Lincoln was shot in 1865 by a man called John Wilkes Booth. Lincoln was attending Ford Theatre to see ‘Our American Cousin’, a comedic play. The police guard, William Crook went across the street for a drink and during the 3^rd act; Booth entered the box and shot Abraham Lincoln in the back of the head with a derringer. As Lincoln lay unconscious, the assassin tried to make an escape and leapt down below onto the stage, a breaking his left shin. Nonetheless, he hobbled backstage to where there was a saddled horse waiting. John Booth galloped away with a fellow conspirator.

As time went on, Booth could no longer ignore his pain, despite the large quantity of whisky he had downed. He made his way to the house of Dr Samuel Mudd. Where he tended to his leg at 4am. Mudd was apparently weary of the men and ‘although acquainted with the men’ he testified that he did not recognise Booth went setting his leg right. As the assassins slept in the house while the doctor went out the next morning. This is when Mudd learnt of the death of Lincoln and ordered the men off his property.

Dr Samuel Mudd was convicted of being a conspirator. The evidence against him was ambiguous and historians have argued his case. He has since been pardoned.

So this is the origin of the phrase ‘Your name is Mud’.

Unfortunately not.

Disappointingly enough, it is a coincidence that the surname of the doctor is ‘Mud’ as the phrase which means’ You are unpopular’ can be traced back to the 16^th century to describe things that were ‘pointless and polluting. It was used in 1703 to describe lower class people.

So it was just a coincidence, I was a little disappointed when I found out that the Booth and Mudd story was not the origin but I suppose I can deal with it…

A.C