The stink/The stank

[Wilson Gray]

*Very interesting! So, it's a term, well-known in the Mother Country,
that seemingly has died out among members of the primary social group
in the daughter-country. Yet, it somehow has been preserved by members
of a despised secondary group, a not-unknown occurrence. Since I am
fully persuaded of the correctness of Jonathon's evidence, I am thereby
obligated to put aside the erroneous belief that "stinkfinger(ing)" is
a term that arose in the black linguistic pool (Blackpool! Get it?
Rimshot!). I guess that the colored will now have to make do with Plato
and Cleopatra.*

*This is a reference to a species of pseudo-history still prevalent,
unfortunately, among some black Americans, including even some
academics, that supposedly gives the lie to the white man's perversion,
distortion, and revision of the history of Western civilization. For
some reason, Plato and Cleopatra have stuck in my mind, probably
because I've been familiar with these two claims since I learned to
read. Ey, wallah:

The name usually rendered as "Plato" in English derives from "platon,"
the Greek word for "flat." Plato was given this (nick)name because he
had a, by the white man's standard, flat nose. This so-called "flat"
nose is typical of people whose ancestry flows from Mother Africa, from
whose ebon loins sprang mankind itself! Hence, Plato was black.

Cleopatra was an Egyptian. Not even The Man himself disputes this.
Egypt is in Africa. The black race comes from Africa. Therefore,
Cleopatra was black.

-Wilson

On Feb 7, 2005, at 11:10 AM, Jonathon Green wrote:

> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
> -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Jonathon Green <slang at ABECEDARY.NET>
> Subject:      Re: The stink/The stank
> -----------------------------------------------------------------------
> --------
>
> c.1879–1935 in G. Legman _The Limerick_ (1953) 112: There was a young
> curate of Eltham / Who wouldn’t fuck girls, but he felt ’em. / In lanes
> he would linger / And play at stink-finger [etc.]
>
> Definitely white (white-collared even) and according to Legman probably
> extant from the late 19C. Irving Welsh gives the Scots (and again
> white)
> alternative:
>
> 2001 Welsh Glue 39: Ah settles her doon oan the couch giein her the
> stinky-pinky for a bit, sliding ma hand up that wee kilt and inside her
> pants.
>
> [Note to Jon Lighter: be relieved you don't have transcribe, and indeed
> translate Mr W.]
>
> Of course we Brits are equally enamoured of 'finger-pie', hence Lennon
> &
> McCartney in 'Penny Lane' (1967): Penny Lane is in my ears and in my
> eyes, / A four [sc. four penny-worth] of fish and finger pie / In
> summer.
>
> Whether the two Fabs were being dead smart (as they might have put it)
> and making a sly reference to fish = woman = vagina, I cannot say.
>
> Jonathon Green
>