Hinky

[Baker, John]

        Newsweek writer Allan Sloane used the word "hinky" in his Washington
Post column today (which I believe may also run in other newspapers), at
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A30466-2002Feb18.html:  "The
recent panic in the market over anything that looks remotely like hinky
accounting has produced more reform pressure in the two months since Enron
filed for bankruptcy protection than former SEC chief Arthur Levitt Jr.
could generate in eight years of fighting on behalf of investors."

The term is not in the OED, but according to SlangSite.com it means
"Something that is out of whack, incorrect, just a bit off, wrong, confused,
suspect."

Used with some notoriety in The Fugitive (1993), the L.A. Times has it from
3/17/86, ""I started to feel hinky about the whole thing."

John Baker