The stink/The stank

[Laurence Horn]

At 4:40 PM -0500 2/7/05, Benjamin Zimmer wrote:
>On Mon, 7 Feb 2005 16:10:33 +0000, Jonathon Green <slang at ABECEDARY.NET>
>wrote:
>
>>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.
>
>"We put in a joke or two...'four of fish and finger pie.' The women would
>never dare say that, except to themselves. Most people wouldn't hear it,
>but 'finger pie' is just a nice little joke for the Liverpool lads who
>like a bit of smut."  -- Paul McCartney in _Beatles in Their Own Words_
>(1978)
>
and here I was thinking all along that it was "for a fish and finger
pie", not that I was able to parse it.

L