<snip>
The OED2(3) has "mutt" emerging -- definitely US -- about 1900, as an
abbreviation of "muttonhead", originally a stupid person, then applied to a
dog.
<snip>
Although 'Mutt' is defined as 'a worthless specimen' in a 1910 US book on
dog breeding it's in a small glossary of 'technical terms' which includes
several lifted from horseracing, such as 'flyer', 'ringer', 'blaze' etc. My
own suspicion is that the racetrack might indeed be the source. It's used in
*Thoroughbreds* (W A Fraser; 1902), albeit of a person not a horse, A. Mutt
of *Mutt and Jeff* (1907 onwards) bets on the horses, and it's used to
describe a horse in *Blister Jones* (J T Foote; 1913).
As a descriptor of people, Wodehouse's all too numerous usages make it a
virtual synonym of 'mug'; however it's stronger (and closer to, say,
'worthless') when O'Neill uses it in *Anna Christie*: 'You mutt, you! I've
stood enough from you. Don't you dare.'
I suspect that *Mutt and Jeff* (including the early films) is what caused
the word to take off.
As to muttonhead, I am doubtful: 'mutt' seems to precede it, although
'mutt-head' does exist. Did we not have a discussion about 'lunkhead' at
some point?
But Project Gutenberg is a terrible thing.
CW
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'Listen people, I don't know how you expect to ever stop the
war if you can't sing any better than that'
- Country Joe McDonald, Woodstock 1969
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