Ignorance #2. How did Mark Twain get his name?

Question

Almost. Allllmost.

Answer 1

Lucy's right.  I remember the story goes something like this.  When the captain was steering through shallow waters there would be a man stationed at the front of the boat.  He would thow out ahead a weight with a string attached and reel it back in and note the depth.  I think it started as, "The marking on the twine is so many feet" later shortened to just "Mark twine 5 feet"  later became Mark Twain....Samual Clemens who loved the river and the boats adopted this as his pen name.

Answer 2

Everything I've seen here is correct, except that the unit of measurement is a fathom.  Mark twain (two fathoms) = 12 feet.

Answer 3

Lucy is right but if you want more info on how Samual Clemens (including the fact that Mark Twain wasn't his only pen name) check out this site: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_Twain#...

There's some really cool info  

Answer 4

It is my understanding that he got it from his steamboat days when he was a crewhand on one, they used to throw a cord over the side with knots in it to mark the depth of the water, and if it was 2 knots deep, it was yelled out MARK TWAIN (mark 2) and thats what he used for a pen name.  

Answer 5

He worked on the Mississippi River. Mark Twain was a way of measuring the depth of the river.