The stink/The stank

[Jim Parish]

Wilson Gray wrote, of "stinkfinger":
> Once upon  a time, I thought that this term was a universal of American
> guy-talk or that its meaning would be immediately transparent   among
> guys who'd never heard it before. I've since discovered that it's
> totally unknown on the white-guy street and, even though I've always
> used the standard pronunciation when talking to them.

I've heard the phrase used by a white acquaintance of mine, using the
standard pronunciation; he was a career US Navy man, serving from
the mid-'60s to the mid-'80s, and I'm absolutely certain that that's where
he encountered it.

Jim Parish