In a book I was thumbing through, a character was topd by his friend something to the effect of, "The women you date are all dumb blondes who put a 'like' or an 'um' or an 'er' in every single sentence that comes out of their mouths. Are you afraid of a woman with better lingual skills."

I found myself wondering if lingual is the prorer wod here. Should it be linguisic? What's the distinction?

the OED:
4. a. Pertaining to the tongue as the organ of speech.
b. Pertaining to language or languages.
1871 BLACKIE Four Phases i. 79 Your talk is not a mere exhibition of lingual dexterity; it means something.

Lingual can be a synonym for liguistic and it can also mean "relating to the tongue". Liguistic can mean "relating to language" (the same as lingual) but it can also mean "Of or relating to the scientific study of language".

It seems to me that there is sufficient difference between the two words to prefer linguistic for the language references and lingual for organic references.

Remind me not to read that book.

I'd have thought the word should be "linguistic," but it does seem that they can be synonyms. I think lingual means "tongue" much more frequently than it means "pertaining to languages."