mulet/mullet and kankedort

Luanne von Schneidemesser lvonschn at WISC.EDU
Thu Oct 18 17:46:52 UTC 2012


Can anyone help on the following request, from a WI historian/writer?
We aren't finding any helpful information at DARE.

  Do you know the word "mulet"?  I'm reading an account of an incident
in a Wisconsin logging camp from around 1873 and the following sentence
occurs:

"The mission of the newcomers was usually to mulet (sic) the gullible
woodsman in one way or another."


And the husband (a botanist) of a friend would like to know more about
"kankedort".  It seems that it isn't /Obs. /as the OED implies. He's
aware of the basics that come up on a google search, like
http://www.kankedort.net/about.htm.
He writes:

About the only references we can find are from people researching the
meaning of the word (beginning with Chaucer?).  It seems like no one
really knows what it means, there is a lot of speculation, but no
certainty.  If you want a recent reference, the word has been used in
the title of a recent paper, in Madroño (a journal of Western North
American Botany), Vol. 58(4) 267--272.  2011, by Genevieve K. Walden
(grad student here) and R. Patterson.

Here's the title page info for the article:
NOMENCLATURAL KANKEDORTS IN PHACELIA
(BORAGINACEAE: HYDROPHYLLOIDEAE)
GENEVIEVE K. WALDEN AND ROBERT PATTERSON
Department of Biology, San Francisco State University, 1600 Holloway Avenue,
San Francisco, CA 94132


Thanks.

Luanne

--
Luanne von Schneidemesser
Senior Editor/Distinguished Scientist
/Dictionary of American Regional English/
608 265-0532
http://dare.wisc.edu
http://dare.news.wisc.edu/

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