missing word: mullet

[Lynne Murphy]

Douglas Wilson says:

>
>Amazon shows at least two "mullet" books.

I found only one on haircuts--the other's on how to cook the fish, I think.

>
>Etymology??

 From the insult mullet-head, apparently (which goes back to the mid
19th c.).  Probably first was equivalent to 'fish-head', but then
stupid people stereotyped in terms of haircut, so a 'mullet' is the
type of haircut a mullet-head has?

>Somebody claims the expression comes from the use of "mullethead" in the
>movie "Cool Hand Luke".

Doubt it.

Lynne
--
M. Lynne Murphy
Lecturer in Linguistics
School of Cognitive and Computing Sciences
University of Sussex
Brighton BN1 3AN    UK
phone:  +44(0)1273-678844
fax:    +44(0)1273-671320