The stink/The stank

[neil]

on 7/2/05 9:22 pm, Wilson Gray at wilson.gray at RCN.COM wrote:

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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Wilson Gray <wilson.gray at RCN.COM>
> Subject:      Re: The stink/The stank
>
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> *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

Whatever you're on, G. Legman would have been proud of you (esoteric info
one wonders how one lived without)!

_ Neil Crawford
>
> On Feb 7, 2005, at 11:10 AM, Jonathon Green wrote:
>
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>> 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
>>