As I recall from reading the stuff my sister got and hid when she joined (for a year only) the original founders had the idea of being a sort of Arthurian society using its brains to serve the community as the knight of the Round Table were supposed to have done. I dare say there was a play on words with the idea of mind as well.

A number of people who I know to have joined have left after the year was up. Others have not. Strangely, the leavers have a higher proportion of women than the ones who stay. Oddly, the stayers are all men, and also men I would not want to spend time with. (Both samples are small, so this is probably bad science.) This not wanting to spend time with reaction does not apply to the leavers, or to other very bright men (PhD level) who have never felt drawn to membership.

Apparently, there is a disproportion of males to females in membership, so Bobert's remark, so long as no-one thinks it has anything too do with actual intelligence apart from that needed to solve rather pointless puzzles, may have some truth in it.

(The magazines - the old ones my sister used to hide, or more recent ones donated by a member - did not encourage the thought that the members were engaging in activities particularly requiring intellect. And, in the recent ones, a running "joke" about gherkins did emphasise a male tendency.)

Also apparently, the root of the word mind is the same as the root of the word man - but back then, the word meant everyone, the equivalent of anthropos or human, not of andros or vir. In the ancestor of English, man meant the whole of humanity, modified as wif-man for females, and wer-man for males.

I suppose it is possible the original founders were playing on the masculine sound of Men in the name, as well. The knightly link might suggest a leaning towards males being the default of intelligence. (Though the IQ tests used in British schools to determine whoi went to grammar school had to be fixed because more girls scored high enough for grammar than boys, and there were fewer places for girls than boys. This may have inclined people with access to the "corrected" results, but not the raw scores to believe that men were more intelligent.)

Women do not feel so attracted to clubs with secrets as men - whether this has any indication of relative intelligence levels is a moot point.

Mostly, posts on the Mudcat are much more intelligent seeming than anything I read in Mensa material.

Penny