"Stinky pinky"

[Baker, John]

        When I learned this game (when I was a freshman in college, from another freshman), we called it "hinky pinky."  The choices were hink pink for one-syllable rhymes, hinky pinky for two-syllable rhymes, and hinkety pinkety for three-syllable rhymes; I don't recall ever having any four-syllable rhymes.  The only example I remember is "Hink pink:  an oblong spheroid."  The answer, of course, is "a tall ball."

John Baker


-----Original Message-----
From: American Dialect Society [mailto:ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU]On Behalf
Of Arnold M. Zwicky
Sent: Wednesday, September 29, 2004 2:38 PM
To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
Subject: Re: "Stinky pinky"


i'm sure that this was not the sense intended on the Jerry Springer
show, but there is a non-sexual sense of the term: the name of kind of
word play, in which the main player defines something that is named by
a two-word rhyming expression, and the other participants try to guess
it.  if the rhyming words have one syllable each, it's a Stink Pink; if
two, a Stinky Pinky; if three, a Stinkety Pinkety; if four, a
Gestinkety Gepinkety.