Date:  Wed, 6 Mar 1996 09:39:12 CST

From:  "Joan H. Hall" <jdhall[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]FACSTAFF.WISC.EDU>

Subject: Re: skinny marink?



_Skinny marink_ is a variant of the earlier _skinny malink_, which goes

back to a comic song on the London stage around 1870. The _Scottish

National Dictionary_ has _skinnymalink(ie)_, for an emaciated person or

animal, with an 1892 quote "Twa skinamalinks o' the genus horse." A 1956

quote says, "There used to be a chidren's song in Aberdeen relating the

adventures of a thin man called 'Skinamalinky Lang Legs', which is still

sung as a skipping-song, etc."



I think this goes back to a Scottish phrase, "like the links o the cruik,"

which means 'very thin, skinny.' The cruik, or crook, is the hook from

which a pot is hung over a fire, and the links are the chain that suspends

the hook. Someone who is skinny as a link is obviously very skinny.



In the form "Skin-a-ma-rink," the phrase was popularized in 1924 by Eddie

Cantor, in a song written by Al Dubin, Jimmy McHugh, and Irving Mills.



Joan Hall, DARE