Helen:

i would have used tinker as an intransitive verb and tinkerer as a noun, in place of tink and tinkering. OED supports both approaches, but leaves the impression that tinkering is the art of trying ineffectually to fix things, if such can be an art rather than artless.

I wonder if there isn;t some regionalism invovled here.

Not surprisingly, tinker is an English and Scots term for a gypsy.

TEd


TEd