"gink"?

[Laurence Horn]

On Aug 31, 2011, at 6:26 PM, Dan Goncharoff wrote:

> I wish to declare I am neither a gunch or a ginch.
>
> TheGonch

Well, on the bright side, if a ginch is an ectomorph and a gunch an endomorph, as sound symbolism predicts and the lexical entries seems to confirm, that would make you a mesomorph.  Could be worse.

--LH, who is now prepared to speculate that "gunk" derived from a term originally designating a large mess o' money

>
> Sent from my iPhone
>
> On Aug 31, 2011, at 6:00 PM, Jonathan Lighter <wuxxmupp2000 at GMAIL.COM> wrote:
>
>> ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
>> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>> Poster:       Jonathan Lighter <wuxxmupp2000 at GMAIL.COM>
>> Subject:      Re: "gink"?
>> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>
>> That's occurred to me, Doug, but "ginch" is a pretty obscure dialect term
>> from rural Scotland. I wonder how many people ever used it.
>>
>> The Concise Scots Dictionary lists only "gunch," BTW, with the extended
>> (20th C.) meaning of a "short, thickset person," primarily in Caithness.
>>
>> The distinction between "ginch" and "gunch" in spoken Scots, of course,
>> would often be problematic.
>>
>> JL
>>
>> On Wed, Aug 31, 2011 at 5:31 PM, Douglas G. Wilson <douglas at nb.net> wrote:
>>
>>> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
>>> -----------------------
>>> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>>> Poster:       "Douglas G. Wilson" <douglas at NB.NET>
>>> Subject:      Re: "gink"?
>>>
>>> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>>
>>> On 8/31/2011 4:50 PM, Jonathan Lighter wrote:
>>>> ....
>>>> But if we want to get conjectural, what the hell is the origin of U.S.
>>>> "ginch" ('sexually attractive or available young woman/women')? Big in
>>> the
>>>> '50s, IIRC.
>>> --
>>>
>>> Conjectural only: "ginch" = "small piece" (Scots): in Wright's EDD
>>> (Banff) and Warrack's "Scots Dialect Dictionary".
>>>
>>> (Cf. "gunch" = "big piece".)
>>>
>>> I think the earlier citations seem compatible with a non-obscene usage:
>>> perhaps comparable to "piece of fluff/skirt/etc.".
>>>
>>> -- Doug Wilson
>>>
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>>
>>
>>
>> --
>> "If the truth is half as bad as I think it is, you can't handle the truth."
>>
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