Klarinet Archive - Posting 000079.txt from 2005/06

From: Tom Flavel <tom@-----.net>
Subj: Re: [kl] Personal prejudice
Date: Thu, 02 Jun 2005 23:21:48 -0400

On 02/06/2005 19:43:07, Ormondtoby Montoya wrote:
> Tony Pay wrote:
>
> > What is this 'pinkie' thing, anyway?
>
> American Heritage Dictionary says that "pin" and "pink" are variants of
> an obsolete word that once meant "little finger". The origin of this
> usage (according to the dictionary) is obscure and probably unrelated to
> the modern meaning of color.
>
> The dictionary explicitly lists "pinkie" as the diminutive of "pin" or
> pink".

The dutch "pink" is "little finger".
-je endings make a word smaller as in, the small equivalent of whatever
the word would be without the -je. For example, bloem is flower, so
bloempje is "little flower". All "little" words are neutral in gender.
Some words exist only in little form. Furthermore, sometimes the
"little" form is not just the same object but scaled down - I cant think
of an example off the top of my head (anyone?), but to fabricate
something, if X is a car, Xje might be a motorbike. Different item, but
"junior", if that makes sense.

So, pinkje is little little finger... how this related to the clarinet,
I have no idea, and certinaly no idea of the etmyology of the word :)

Regards,

--
Tom

-------------------------------------------------------------------
Klarinet is a service of Woodwind.Org, Inc. http://www.woodwind.org