Song title in iTunes

[Wilson Gray]

The thirty-second iTunes snip doesn't provide sufficient context for
me to do more than to make an educated(?) guess.

"Evil" here describes a personality trait and not a moral failing. A
person who is "evil" in this sense is a person with a mean, nasty,
unpleasant personality.

"She's so mean and evil that can't anybody [be found who will] stay
with her," describing a mean old lady for whom it was difficult to
find a housekeeper-companion

"Hinkty" means "snobbish, biggety, putting on airs, acting above one's
station." The "correct" spelling of this word can't be known, since
the spellings "hinkty" and "hankty" are both pronounced in the South
and in a whole lot of the North as though spelled "hankty." And
"hinkty" as a pronunciation could be a Northern hypercorrection.

It could also be the case that the late bluesman, a native of East
Texas whose day job was migratory agricultural worker, could have been
being hinkty in presuming to use "hinkty" in his song, mispronouncing
it as "hanky," a word otherwise unknown, there being no shortened form
of "handkerchief," always pronounced "HANK-a-cheef."

-Wilson

On 2/7/08, Mark Mandel <thnidu at gmail.com> wrote:
> ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Mark Mandel <thnidu at GMAIL.COM>
> Subject:      Re: Song title in iTunes
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Would you mind translating that for those of us ignorant of the lingo?
>
> On Feb 7, 2008 2:18 AM, Wilson Gray <hwgray at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > Mercedes Walton a.k.a. "Mercy Dee":
> >
> > "Evil and Hanky"
> >
> > I'd bet money that this title is actually
> >
> > "Evil and Hinkty"
> >
> > -Wilson
>>
> > <http://www.americandialect.org>
>
> --
> Mark Mandel
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>


--
All say, "How hard it is that we have to die"---a strange complaint to
come from the mouths of people who have had to live.
-----
                                              -Sam'l Clemens

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