Stinky Pinky Definition and Examples

A rhyming epithet, such as glad dad for a happy father, or wild child for an uncontrollable youngster, is called a stinky pinky. Made up of an adjective and a rhyming noun, a stinky pinky is a type of rhyming compound that functions as a playful definition. As a word game, stinky pinky goes by various names, including hink pink, hank pank, wordy gurdy, and brain train. Examples and Observations 50 Stinky Pinkies an artificial body of water fake lakea bashful insect shy flya bed on fire hot cota better cafe finer dinera better knife nicer slicera boxer who has lost weight lighter fightera cautious bird wary canarycerebral overwork brain strainthe chief of police top copa chubby kitty fat catcolored lemonade pink drinka dark-colored sled dog dusky huskya deceased Marxist dead reddehydrated soup chowder powdera dismal chorus dire choira ditch in Paris French trencha fast elevator swift liftthe funniest joke best jestan explosion in a hen house gizzard blizzarda fanatical slave zealot helota fat fish - stout trouta fuzzy fruit - hairy berrya greased hen slick chicka group yell team screama grumpy mountaintop cynical pinnaclea happier small dog merrier terriera holiday in Panama isthmus Christmasthe home of a small rodent mouse housean impolite man rude dudean inactive flower lazy daisyan ink-stained little finger inky pinkya large toupee big wigpermission to take so mething away removal approvala rabbit that makes you laugh funny bunnya sensible pupil prudent studenta skinny little horse bony ponya smarter author brighter writera smelly finger stinky pinkya smiling father happy pappya Snickers bar dropped on the beach sandy candya strange looking goatee weird bearda superior pullover better sweatera supervisor in a bad mood cross bossa suspicious looking clergyman sinister ministera tardy spouse late matea temperate youngster mild childa tiny insect wee beea useful rule effective directivea wet puppy soggy doggya young cat in love smitten kitten Shawn Colvin on the Stinky-Pinky Game To play Stinky Pinky, you thought of an adjective and a noun that rhymed, hence the name Stinky Pinky, and described the thing without rhyming in order to challenge the other players to guess your Stinky Pinky. You started out simply; a farm animals sea vessel would naturally be a goat boat, and so forth, although single-syllable answers were called Stink-Pinks, two-syllables Stinky Pinkys, and of course three-syllable rhymes were Stinkity-Pinkitys. One of my fathers favorite words to rhyme was gherkin, as in pickle. Dad thought of a loitering pickle--a lurkin gherkin--a saucy pickle--a smirkin gherkin--a busy pickle--a workin gherkin.(Shawn Colvin, Diamond in the Rough: A Memoir. William Morrow, 2012) How to Play Stinky Pinky This game has acquired more elegant names since I first played it as a child, but this is the name I knew . . .. The game requires two or more players. One player thinks up a rhyming pair of words and provides a verbal clue--a non-rhyming definition. The other player(s) must discover the rhyming word pair. The example that comes immediately to mind from my childhood games is this one: Player A: obese feline animalPlayer B: fat cat I actually remember, at the age of seven or eight, learning the meaning of the words obese and feline in this context.The game encourages careful listening to the clue and narrowing down the possibilities for an answer, constrained by the syntax of the clue and the need to find rhyming words.(Margie Golick, Playing With Words. Pembroke, 1987) Stinky Pinkies in the 1940s Atlanta subdebs [teenage girls] have a little patois somewhat like old Pig Latin which they call Stinky Pinky. It contains words like Super-Snooper (a G-man), Flyer-Higher (an aviator), Snooty-Beauty (a debutante), Hen-Pen (a girls school), Jug-Mug (a man in jail), and Silly Filly (a young girl). (Subdebs. Life magazine, January 27, 1941) A Double Stinky Pinky A stinky pinky is a rhyming pair of words; one gives a paraphrase and the challenge is to recover the stinky pinky. I believe Paul [Halmos] is responsible for the following excellent double stinky pinky. Give a stinky pinky for an inebriated scoundrel. Answers: a drunk skunk or a plastered bastard. (Irving Kaplansky, Reminiscences. Paul Halmos: Celebrating 50 Years of Mathematics, ed. by John H. Ewing and F.W. Gehring. Springer-Verlag, 1991)