Last month we asked you to tell us where the phrase "your name is mud" comes from. Now I’ll give credit to Samuel Dressler, who first wrote, ”’Your name is mud’ refers to Dr. Samuel Mudd, who is widely reviled for his part in the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln. Dr. Mudd gave medical help to John Wilkes Booth, who broke his leg while escaping after shooting Lincoln in 1865.’ Although I don’t reveal the answers until the next UBCF is posted, I did let him know that was not really the correct answer, and after some digging he then added, "it may be from a book called Hell Upon Earth of 1703 that includes the word in the sense of a simpleton or a fool." Dr. Samuel A. Mudd was the physician who set the leg of Lincoln’s assassin John Wilkes Booth and was imprisoned as a conspirator in the assassination. He was released after three years and was pardoned by President Andrew Johnson for taking over from the prison doctor, who died in a yellow fever epidemic.
But the saying "name is mud" did not originate with Dr. Mudd. The Oxford English Dictionary cites the first example from 1823. The term also appeared in A Dictionary of the Turf, written by John Badcock under the pen name John Bee, who died about 1830, well before Lincoln’s assassination. His entry in the slang dictionary reads: "Mud, a stupid twaddling fellow. ‘And his name is mud!’ ejaculated upon the conclusion of a silly oration, or of a leader in the Courier." And, as Sam pointed out, Hell Upon Earth of 1703 includes the word in the sense of a simpleton or a fool; and so even though it took a quick second follow-up, we will award a prize to Sam!