"gink"?

[Jonathan Lighter]

All six copies of "The Besom Maker" in the Bodleian Library's broadside
collection have "gink."

The earliest date is some time from 1819 through 1844.

I've never seen "gink" used in this way. If I had to guess, I'd guess that
the once very common "chink" was intended, via a voiced pronunciation like
"jink" and {g} for {j}. Unlikely, but maybe no less unlikely than that a
genuine "gink" ('money') existed more or less independently of "chink."

That there are six copies produced by at least three printers doesn't mean
anything: the printers copied each other's ballads ad lib.

The song looks like it was inspired by the title and refrain of Burns's "Buy
Broom Besoms," about a broom-seller looking for a wife. That contains
neither "gink" nor "chink."

JL

On Wed, Aug 31, 2011 at 12:32 PM, Garson O'Toole
<adsgarsonotoole at gmail.com>wrote:

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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Garson O'Toole <adsgarsonotoole at GMAIL.COM>
> Subject:      Re: "gink"?
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> The link below points to a book in GB titled "English far and wide: a
> festschrift for Inna Koskenniemi …" The word chink is used instead of
> gink, and the annotation [money] is given. The snippet GB displays
> shows the relevant text.
>
> His mill I rattled round, I ground his grits [millstones] so clean;
> I eased him of his chink [money] in gathering broom so green.
>
> http://books.google.com/books?id=AkYRAQAAMAAJ&q=chink#search_anchor
>
>
> The GB book "Sing out, Volume 38" also uses chink and says that "chink
> is money."
>
>
> http://books.google.com/books?id=lY8JAQAAMAAJ&q=%22his+chink%22#search_anchor
> http://books.google.com/books?id=lY8JAQAAMAAJ&q=chink#search_anchor
>
> I make no claims about the quality of information in these books.
>
>
> On Wed, Aug 31, 2011 at 11:48 AM, Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at yale.edu>
> wrote:
> > ---------------------- Information from the mail header
> -----------------------
> > Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> > Poster:       Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at YALE.EDU>
> > Subject:      "gink"?
> >
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> >
> > A traditional bawdy ballad "The Besom Maker" contains the two verses =
> > below; the narrator (since that's the term we've decided to adopt, faute
> =
> > de mieux) is a young (or, as it develops, at least still fertile) woman =
> > who makes besoms (brooms) out of broom or twigs.
> >
> > http://www.mudcat.org/@displaysong.cfm?SongID=3D5896
> > [same lyrics as performed by Lucky Bags on their "Delight in Disorder" =
> > CD]
> >
> >
> > One day as I was roving, over the hills so high,
> > I met with a rakish squire, all with a rolling eye;
> > He tipp'd to me the wink, I wrote to him the tune,
> > I eased him of his gink, a-gathering of green broom.
> >
> > One day as I was turning all to my native vale,
> > I met Jack Sprat the miller, he asked me to turn tail;
> > His mill I rattled round, I ground the grists so clean,
> > I eased him of his gink, a-gathering broom so green.
> >
> > Now the second meaning of the gink of which she eases these gentlemen is
> =
> > clear (especially by the last verse, when the narrator is forced to give
> =
> > up her besom-selling for nursing), but there must be a first meaning (I =
> > assume =3D 'money, coin'), which I can't find in any lexicon=85but one =
> > (see below).
> >
> > The OED entry for _gink_ evidently involves a different lexical item:
> >
> > Etymology:  Of obscure origin.
> > slang (orig. U.S.).
> >
> > A fellow; a man. (Freq. pejorative.)
> > 1910    Sat. Evening Post 22 Oct. 12/3,   I don't believe that all these
> =
> > ginks have got coin enough to support one good game.
> > [etc.]
> >
> > Note the 'orig. U.S.', which is at variance with what I assume to be a =
> > local British sense within the song.
> >
> > There's no entry for _gink_ in Farmer & Henley or in Wright's _English =
> > Dialect Dictionary_, and the web is no apparent help.  Neither the =
> > acronym adopted by the eponymous facebook group (GINK =3D 'Green =
> > Inclinations, No Kids') nor the first several entries on =
> > urbandictionary, either the OED sense ('man', derogatory) or various =
> > more specific slurs (gink =3D pejorative for someone of Indian descent) =
> > are particularly relevant.  But curiously, the 13th entry on ud (despite
> =
> > all the thumbs down) seems to be on target, although I can't parse the =
> > example provided:
> >
> > 13. gink 28 up, 47 down
> > Money, currency.
> > Dat nickel gots da GINK yun!
> >
> > Any suggestions?  Do any actual lexicons contain this sense?
> >
> > LH=
> >
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> >
>
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