Discussion Groups / English Usage / January 2004

My posting was not responsive the the specific question made by Peter T.
Daniels. It was, however, responsive to the implied question, namely, did
Mark Twain or William Dean Howells use the word "Mugwump"? Mark Twain did,
as I demonstrated. I did not attempt to show that William Dean Howells used
it, but did show that he was *opposed* to the Mugwumps.

You were aware of the implied question yourself, since you wrote the
following in your original post to this thread (emphasis added with
double-asterisk brackets): "Someone in a crossposting between AEU and
sci.lang wondered in recent days whether there was a concordance of Mark
Twain's works available somewhere.  **The immediate concern was to know
whether Mark Twain had ever used the word 'mugwump.'**"

Here is some of the context of the discussion in sci.lang and
alt.english.usage ,  reformatted from a post by Daniels which can be seen at

http://groups.google.com/groups?q=g:thl3628432412d&dq=&hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF
-8&selm=400860F1.6BC0%40worldnet.att.net

or

http://tinyurl.com/2sbye

Philip Anderson wrote:

"As an American word it may _no longer_ mean 'boss', but in British English
it still does.  This is the only sense in which I have met it being used,
although dictionaries do give the alternative meaning of an (American)
independent.

"Has it ever been used to describe an independent politician in Britain? If
not, then this must clearly be the secondary meaning."

Dylan Sung wrote:

"I've never met this word used in the last twenty years except when
Burrough's Naked Lunch was made into a movie. Would one consider it
obselete?"

Peter T. Daniels wrote:

"I've never met this word outside that 11th-grade American History
textbook.

"Is there a concordance of Mark Twain, or William Dean Howells, or other
popular novelists of the era?"