Klarinet Archive - Posting 000084.txt from 2005/06

From: Tony Pay <tony.p@-----.org>
Subj: Re: [kl] Personal prejudice
Date: Fri, 03 Jun 2005 06:22:24 -0400

On 3 Jun, Tom Flavel <tom@-----.net> wrote:

> On 02/06/2005 21:44:35, Ormondtoby Montoya wrote:
>
> > Tom?Flavel wrote:
> >
> > > So, pinkje is little little finger... how this related to the clarinet,
> > > I have no idea
> >
> > Americans (at least) often name the keys that are used in long
> > fingerings: "pinkie keys".
> >
> > However, in English, pinkie sometimes has a 'wimpy' or 'sissy' or
> > 'foppish' connotation --- as when a teacup is held with the little finger
> > extended. Hence Tony included "diddumses" in his original jest.

Well, 'diddums' is something unsympathetic you say to someone who is behaving
like a child, and memories of Gollum made me feel the plural was likely to be
'diddumses':-)

> I've never heard pinkie to mean wimpy (I'm English), simply to refer to the
> little finger. Curious.

I haven't heard it to mean 'wimpy' either. My instinctive reaction
(prejudice) was that it just sounded like babytalk to me, and I'd never come
across it at all, ever, except on this list.

Yet my wife, who comes from Newcastle, now tells me that she's known the word
since childhood.

> According to worldwidewords.org, it went via Scots, first.

Perhaps that fits with Newcastle (close to the border), perhaps not.

Tony
--
_________ Tony Pay
|ony:-) 79 Southmoor Rd tony.p@-----.org
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