Skilligimink

[James C Stalker]

My mother, KY born (1919) and bred,used "skinny minny" usually in the phrase
skinny minny fish tail, as in she's a real skinny minny fish tail.  I still
use it in intimate (family) contexts mostly, and generally to refer to
children.  My wife used it too, in the same phrase.

JCS

Laurence Horn writes:

> At 3:07 PM -0500 3/10/05, Joanne M. Despres wrote:
>> A North (New) Jersey resident of my acquaintance used say
>> something like "Skinny bolink."  I found this variant listed in a
>> collection of "Brooklynisms" at
>> http://www.lampos.com/brooklyn.htm.
>>
>> Joanne
>>
>> On 10 Mar 2005, at 11:43, Jonathan Lighter wrote:
>>
>>>  "Skinnymalink" was my grandmother's form. She said it frequently.
>>>
>>  > JL
>>>
> strange.  Neither my wife (age 61, grew up in Connecticut) nor my
> daughter (age 20) have ever heard of any of these variants, but it
> was definitely in my parents' vocabulary ("__ is a real
> skinnymarink", I can remember my mother saying), NYC, early-mid 50's.
> Urban slang?
>
> L
>



James C. Stalker
Department of English
Michigan State University