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I wrote my old college linguistics teacher, now long retired (and somewhat deaf), about the term “compskink.” Here’s her reply.
Strange to hear from you. Someone told me you were in prison. Maybe I heard "taxes" instead of "Texas." Compskink? A most enigmatic term. Can't be found in Webster's 3rd unabridged, the OED, or Partridge's Dictionary of American Slang. "Skink" doesn't have a simple etymological history. But you can tease out two main strands. One originates in the Greek word skinkos (L. scincus) , which meant pretty much what biologists today mean by "skink," a smallish, secretive kind of lizard, with species found world wide. It includes one common in the U. S., Scincella lateralis (Say), on which you have probably trod, sat, or reclined without knowing it many times in your youth cavorting in the Ozark woods. According to one zoologist I consulted, skinks are “cryptic” and “pretty low on the food chain.” But in English there is an older word skink, with roots all the way back to Anglo-Saxon, meaning, roughly, to pour liquor. So Chaucer in the Merchant's Tale speaks of "Bacus the wyn hem skynketh all aboute" (Bacchus, the happy bastard, he plies his trade everywhere—my translation). Later, by metonymy, skink became a common term for barman or tapster. Here's a tentative definition, based on this etymology. Compskink: Obscure and timorous purveyor of writing advice, often unwittingly stepped upon. Sorry I can't be more helpful. Phyllis Wörterschere |