"stinkfinger"

[Wilson Gray]

Jesse, I appreciate the way in which you used "punting." I use it in
precisely that same way, myself. ;-)

-Wilson

On 3/15/06, Jesse Sheidlower <jester at panix.com> wrote:
>
> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
> -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Jesse Sheidlower <jester at PANIX.COM>
> Subject:      Re: "stinkfinger"
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> On Wed, Mar 15, 2006 at 04:05:51PM -0500, Wilson Gray wrote:
> > >From the OED On Line:
> >
> > "*To play at *stinkfinger*,..to grope a woman."
> >
> > Is this really all that "to play at stinkfinger" means to white people?!
> > Of course, it could be simply the case that "correcting" BE
> [stEiNkfEiN@]
> > to "stinkfinger" in spelling does not mean that its meaning is
> necessarily
> > the
> > same as that of stinkfinger. Or, perhaps, the problem is due to my
> > interpreting
> > "to grope a woman" to mean merely "to cop a feel."
>
> I think the problem is with Farmer and Henley's 100-year-old
> definition, rather than any lack of understanding of what the
> term actually means. (OED can be faulted for punting the
> definition, and just saying "see quot. 1903", however.)
>
> Jesse Sheidlower
> OED
>
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