Hinky Dinky

[Jonathan Lighter]

Yes, Jim.  This one is (or was) well known.  It was in print in the '20s.  I knew a guy in college whose father (WWII vet, son of WWI vet) had taught it to him.

Folk song collections like Carl Sandburg's (1927) and the Lomaxes' (1934) give epic length (and always bowdlerized) texts.  Yet in my experience, most of the stanzas seem to have floated around singly and in small clusters.

JL



"James A. Landau" <JJJRLandau at AOL.COM> wrote:
---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
Sender: American Dialect Society
Poster: "James A. Landau"
Subject: Re: Hinky Dinky
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I have a vague recollection that the following stanza was printed circa 1940,
which means it could have been considerably older.

The general got the Croix de Guerre, parlez-vous.
The general got the Croix de Guerre, parlez-vous.
The general got the Croix de Guerre
The son-of-a-bitch was never there
Hinky dinky parlez-vous.

- Jim Landau


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