Tufthunter

[Michael Quinion]

Give me a quick sanity check, people, before my newsletter goes out.
A report in the "Guardian" yesterday on Damien Hirst's New York
exhibition included this:

"In the view of New York-based art critic and Guardian contributor
Robert Hughes, the reviews are entirely justified. 'Hirst is in my
opinion a wildly overrated tufthunter,' he said. 'He's a perfect
example of the triumph of Saatchi's values over aesthetic sense.'"
[http://www.guardian.co.uk/arts/news/story/0,,1453803,00.html]

Is this an unexpected resurgence of the 18th-19th century British
slang term for a toady or sycophant, or has it been reinvented in the
USA with a different meaning?

--
Michael Quinion
Editor, World Wide Words
E-mail: <wordseditor at worldwidewords.org>
Web: <http://www.worldwidewords.org/>