"Stinky pinky"

[Jonathan Lighter]

Thanks, Wilson.  There's no printed documentation for "skank" before the mid-60s, so far as  know.

JL

Wilson Gray <wilson.gray at RCN.COM> wrote:
---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
Sender: American Dialect Society
Poster: Wilson Gray
Subject: Re: "Stinky pinky"
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

On Sep 29, 2004, at 5:09 PM, Jonathan Lighter wrote:

> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
> -----------------------
> Sender: American Dialect Society
> Poster: Jonathan Lighter
> Subject: Re: "Stinky pinky"
> -----------------------------------------------------------------------
> --------
>
> Any chance that "stank-ho" is the source, via white-boy
> misapprehension, of "skank"?
>
> Curiouser and curiouser,
>
> JL

No. "Skank" is way older than "stank-ho." When I was a kid in the '40's
and '50's, "skank" already existed alongside "stankih ho," i.e. "stinky
whore." For me, the question is how and why "stinky" got reduced to
"stink." Insofar as I have any opinion wrt white misapprehension of
black slang, I'm sometimes trivially annoyed by what may be termed
"misuse." For example, whenever I see a full-page ad in the NYT that
reads something like, "FUNKIEST FALL FASHIONS!!! ON SALE NOW!!!", I
feel a frisson of annoyance. "Funky" simply should not be used as a
synonym of "trendy." But, what are you going to do? Write a
prescriptive grammar of slang? ( Now, there's a thought!) In the
immortal words of Noam Chomsky, "I think not."

-Wilson Gray

>
> Wilson Gray wrote:
> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
> -----------------------
> Sender: American Dialect Society
> Poster: Wilson Gray
> Subject: Re: "Stinky pinky"
> -----------------------------------------------------------------------
> --------
>
> On Sep 29, 2004, at 12:23 PM, Dennis R. Preston wrote:
>
>> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
>> -----------------------
>> Sender: American Dialect Society
>> Poster: "Dennis R. Preston"
>
>> Subject: Re: "Stinky pinky"
>> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
>> -
>> --------
>>
>>> I lack the smokin reference, but Jesse's "er" referece has been
>>> known to me since the early 50s, alongside "stink finger."
>>
>> dInIs
>
> I, too, lack the smoking reference, and know the er version as "stink
> finger," which I, too, have known since the early '50's. But the other
> name for it that I know is "finger-fucking." Anyone who's seen the
> indie movie, "Welcome To The Dollhouse," may recall that this latter
> term figures surprisingly - to me, anyway - prominently in the plot. In
> BE, the former term is pronounced as "stank fang-uh" and the latter as
> "fang-uh fuckin," in keeping with the tradition of "southernizing"
> slang terms. Some may also recall another term, "stink-whore," that
> enjoyed a certain vogue a few years back, under the southernized guise
> of "stank-ho."
>
> -Wilson Gray
>
>>
>>> On Wed, Sep 29, 2004 at 12:00:09PM -0400, Wilson Gray wrote:
>>>> A woman on today's Springer show used this phrase, which I've never
>>>> heard before. Unfortunately, I missed the context in which the term
>>>> was
>>>> used. Does anybody know what it means?
>>>
>>> It really depends on the context, but most likely, it refers either
>>> to a kind of marijuana, or the finger as used for, er, insertional
>>> sexual purposes.
>>>
>>> Jesse Sheidlower
>>> OED
>>
>>
>> --
>> Dennis R. Preston
>> University Distinguished Professor of Linguistics
>> Department of Linguistics and Germanic, Slavic, Asian, and African
>> Languages
>> A-740 Wells Hall
>> Michigan State University
>> East Lansing, MI 48824
>> Phone: (517) 432-3099
>> Fax: (517) 432-2736
>> preston at msu.edu
>>
>
>
> ---------------------------------
> Do you Yahoo!?
> Yahoo! Mail is new and improved - Check it out!
>


---------------------------------
Do you Yahoo!?
vote.yahoo.com - Register online to vote today!