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Dictionary of Newfoundland English PDF

855 Pages·1990·75.621 MB·English
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DICTIONARY OF NEWFOUNDLAND ENGLISH This page intentionally left blank EDITED BY G.M. STORY W.J. KIRWIN J.D.A. WIDDOWSON Dictionary of Newfoundland English Second edition with supplement UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO PRESS TORONTO BUFFALO LONDON First edition © University of Toronto Press 1982 Reprinted 1982, 1983 (twice) www.utppublishing.com Second edition © University of Toronto Press 1990 Toronto Buffalo London Printed in Canada Reprinted 1998, 1999, 2002, 2004, 2006 ISBN 0-8020-6819-7 (paper) Printed on acid-free paper Canadian Cataloguing in Publication Data Main entry under title: Dictionary of Newfoundland English 2nd ed. with supplement. Includes bibliographical references. ISBN 0-8020-5887-6 (bound) ISBN 0-8020-6819-7 (pbk.) 1. English language - Dialects - Newfoundland - Dictionaries. 2. English language - Provincialisms - Newfoundland - Dictionaries. I. Story, G.M. (George Morley), 1927- . II. Kirwin, W.J. (William James), 1925- . HI. Widdowson, J.D.A. (John David Allison), 1935- . PE3245.N4D5 1990 427'.9718 C90-094709-8 University of Toronto Press acknowledges the financial assistance to its publishing program of the Canada Council for the Arts and the Ontario Arts Council. The first edition was published with the help of a grant from the Canadian Federation for the Humanities, using funds provided by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, and a grant from the Publication Fund of University of Toronto Press. University of Toronto Press acknowledges the financial support for its publishing activities of the Government of Canada through the Book Publishing Industry Development Program (BPIDP). Canada Contents FOREWORD TO THE THIRD PRINTING BY REX MURPHY vii PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION xiii INTRODUCTION xvii Scope of the Dictionary The Dictionary and English Language Variation in Newfoundland Sources for the Dictionary Pronunciation and Phonetics Presentation of the Dictionary Articles BIBLIOGRAPHY xli Printed Sources Contemporary Collections and Collectors DICTIONARIES AND OTHER WORKS CITED lxxix ABBREVIATIONS lxxxi DICTIONARY OF NEWFOUNDLAND ENGLISH 1 CORRECTIONS TO THE FIRST EDITION 627 Supplement PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION 631 BIBLIOGRAPHY 635 Printed Sources Contemporary Collections and Collectors DICTIONARIES AND OTHER WORKS CITED 647 ABBREVIATIONS 649 SUPPLEMENT TO DICTIONARY 651 This page intentionally left blank Foreword to the Third Printing Whether by coincidence or serendipity, or He has to have known and felt, therefore, at the beckonings of obliging fate, this new that Confederation was the beginning of a printing of the Dictionary of Newfoundland great motion that would work eventually to English is being issued during the mixed diminish, and possibly even obliterate, aspects fevers attending the fiftieth anniversary of of Newfoundland life and character. That Newfoundland's entry into Confederation. it would soften the edges and smooth the 'Next to life itself, Confederation was the angularities of what many regard, without greatest gift of God to Newfoundland.' This excessive romance, as the quintessential New- sentence, or some extended variation of it, was foundland way. An amalgamation with the the mantra of Joey Smallwood, Newfound- mainland giant (for so would Joey have land's first, most durable and exhilarant pre- framed Canada - hyperbole was the medium mier. It was never entirely clear to me whenever of his speech, and speech was the signature of Joey referenced the Deity, or offered testimoni- his imagination) would inevitably subsume als on behalf of same - and he did so with quite much of the distinctiveness, blur the stringent touching frequency, either for endorsement or melody, of Newfoundland character. anathema - if he (Joey, not God) was speaking So much of that melody is in the traditional in the first person or the third. Mr Smallwood language of the people of Newfoundland, the himself was very likely untroubled by the rich brewis of standard, dialectical, and idiom- ambiguity, or, given his abundant self-esteem, atic English which has long startled and may have seen it as too trifling to acknowledge. charmed the ears of visitors, and, truth to tell, As the pre-eminent salesman of Confedera- been a well of close pride and fascination to tion, Joey (to very many Newfoundlanders he Newfoundlanders themselves. This book is a will always be 'Joey') will easily be forgiven house built against its decay. I regard the Dic- his ardour on the subject. Yet I do not think it tionary of Newfoundland English as a sovereign idle to speculate that even Joey understood antidote to the incursions of time and moder- that Confederation, however emphatic its eco- nity against the unique inheritance of New- nomic and social contributions, was a mixed foundland speech. It is the cultural counter- freight. Smallwood was the most passionate weight to the race of change and fashion that Newfoundlander that the island, which is nota- has swept our province since 1949, our reluc- ble for the energetic and intemperate affection tant and long-forestalled dip into the busy it calls from its offspring, has produced. currents of the twentieth century, of which Indeed, it was his passion for Newfoundland, Confederation is both the symbol and the more than the fortissimo oratory or legendary instigating moment. If Joey Smallwood could canniness at the polls, that so beguiled for so be apprised of its appearance, in a third print- long the Newfoundland electorate. His passion ing, during the half-century anniversary year was his career. of his Confederation - and, knowing Joey, it is viii not altogether certain that he cannot be - he simultaneously, in their character as New- would weep tears of joy over the wonderful foundlanders. It is a Newfoundland take on symmetry of the occasion. things. To spell out the ramifications of what it is to A dull fellow - hack fisherman - was making mean and be a Newfoundlander is a bridge too a tedious hash of a good story to his buddies at far for a foreword, and a chasm of despair a local bar. The mutilation complete, came the awaiting all but the mightiest of understand- slow, soft-voiced, unemphatic drawl from a ings. Newfoundland character is somewhere wiseman off-stage in the corner: 'Don't give between a code and a party. It is a task more up your seasonal job.' deflected than declined; however, this, the The words were sounded, one by devilish- Dictionary of Newfoundland English (DNE) ly deliberate one, with almost delicate inof- itself, not only is a casebook for the argument, fensiveness. Less than being uttered, they but comes as close as anything ever will to emerged - as if pushed by some agency other housing, in the particulars and singularities of than the speaker's; as if he, sitting there innoc- Newfoundland speech, the quicksilver notion uously, seemingly inattentive, otherwise qui- of what being a Newfoundlander means, as etly drinking his beer and smoking an inno- well as - and I am aware of the presumptions, cent cigarette, had for the sentence's duration nativist or metaphysical, in this next phrase - become the vessel of an imp of pentecostal what a Newfoundlander is. sarcasm. They didn't so much reach the poor Newfoundlanders have always lived off the dolt's ear as walk in single file to where he water and in their speech. Under the mixed stood and proceed, with sly and fierce cour- turbulence of four to five centuries of hard tesy, to drop in. The target word in this appar- times, rabid politics, and merciless weather, ent monotone, 'seasonal,' took, as was meant, Newfoundlanders have talked back at life. forever. Talk about dry. The poor bastard was They contrived for themselves a way of speak- destroyed. ing that has marked them off from the rest of This is a Newfoundland story, where 'New- the world (this book could not exist otherwise) foundland' has exactly the same meaning as it but, more important, has been a signature does in the title of this work: Dictionary of response to a precarious and much-freighted Newfoundland English. Retell the story to any tenure in a hard and joyful place. The peculiar Newfoundlander and he or she will automati- play of history, geography, climate, and occu- cally register the pitch and manner of the pation upon the Newfoundland people is both delivery, re-create the scene, in fact, play out vividly and subtly contained and made mani- the little oral movie in the mind's ear until its fest in the wild artefact of Newfoundland lethal and singular cadence is perfectly repro- speech. The DNE is, with some flightiness of duced. To get the story into an outsider's metaphor, our DNA. understanding, as Charles Lamb once re- It's a marvel that this book exists at all. I am marked in a context mildly analogous, would not speaking of the marvel of its scholarship, require a surgical operation. which others since its first publication in 1982 It is a Newfoundland story because it plays have had occasion to mark, and have paid on Newfoundland occupation (fishing is a sea- worthy tribute to; nor the marvel of the idea of sonal job); because it is aggressive and defla- a dictionary of Newfoundland English, though tionary (Newfoundlanders do not savour cost- that conception, in retrospect so plausible and free humour); because it lives primarily in the fine, when first conjured had to have been performance (Newfoundlanders have had a lot shimmering with perplexities as to its utility of time to hone their timing. The delivery is and decorum, and ominous with challenge. all); because, and this is the cardinal consider- The marvel of this book goes much, much ation, it goes to the character of all the parties - deeper. I take the first and primary miracle of the dullard, the audience, and the speaker - this dictionary to be that there was a corpus of ix idiom and expression, singularly flavoured range of its variations and inventions. The talk and textured, remarkable for its ingenuities, of this place has startled and charmed outsid- pungency, and flavour, emphatically belong- ers for generations. Let one serve for what ing to the place and history of Newfoundland, many have testified. A visitor early in this cen- available for collection, citation, and register tury, the author George Allen England, in his in the first place. I take its second to be that it celebrated prose documentary The Greatest was seen by Story, Kirwin, and Widdowson, Hunt in the World, still the most vivid account the editors and projectors of this pioneer work, of the economic and cultural ritual - so central as eminently and unabridgeably worth their to Newfoundland imagination and reality - of time, intelligence, and dedication to undertake the traditional seal hunt, felt the need to alert the cull and gathering. his readers not only that he was taking them to It is one thing to resolve to gather the living unfamiliar and forbidding waters, but that they and historical speech of a people. But before had need for patience and strength before he that idea would suggest itself, we must pre- led them into another domain as well: 'And suppose that there is something in or about here just a word of explanation and - if neces- that speech which underwrites the interest or sary - of apology to the reader. In the course value of collecting it. Hell will have its second of this narrative it will be necessary to dip sleet storm before a brash lexicographer col- heavily into dialect. The sealing gear, cloth- lects and assays a dull argot. ing, food, the weather, all of life in fact, as Viewed superficially, that Newfoundland's named by the sealers, will involve strange, experience, almost proverbial for its economic unfamiliar words. The Newfoundland lan- precariousness, austerity, and 'hard times,' guage is one unique and apart from any other' materially so unyielding, should be counter- (my italics). weighted, as it were, by intangible resources Newfoundland speech is the speech of peo- of expressiveness, verbal play, and distinctive- ple over time as they lived, worked, and ness, a richness and copiousness in the lexical played; it is a living, active creation. Its art larder, is almost shocking in its reverse sym- was not deliberative in the sense that we think metry. But of course those who know New- of literary speech as being deliberative - that foundland and Newfoundlanders, who have is, formal, conscious of a written tradition, acquaintance or intimacy with the place and searching for 'high' effect, individuated, its people, know that, even more than its structured, and crafted. The speech of authors. emphatic scenery, sadistic climate, and unut- The art of an oral tradition has its crafts, and terable politics, the most salient and irresist- implies formidable intelligence and resource. ible characteristic of Newfoundland life is the But it seeks less for stature and more for use speech (in all its superb flavours) of its people. and play, and play even when it is for use. The There simply has been and is nothing like it abundance of terms which are to be found in anywhere else. Newfoundland speech had the dictionary that detail the technicalities of melody and pulse, terseness and exuberance, occupation - nets, ice, traps, and lines - are tone and variety, combinations of devious and almost all of them sweetened by elements that subtle rhetoric, artfulness of designation, pun- go beyond the simply necessary. Newfound- gency of narrative and compression, proverb land speech is the anti-matter of bureau- and story - it is like nothing so much as a self- cratese - the light on the galactic other side of generating festival of unselfconscious lexical that primal and devouring and mingy, blood- testing, celebration, and play. less dark. Every region of every country, it is a safe It is the nature of the Dictionary of New- presumption, has its twists of idiom and locu- foundland English that it necessarily travelled tion. Language inevitably takes a signature outside the frontiers of print in search of its from location, history, and habit. Newfound- items and citations. Newfoundlanders are, and land is different in the precocious stock and have always been, a verbally conscious peo-

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