Saturday, April 28, 2012

Unfamiliar Words


This song contains some excellent examples of the Newfoundland dialect. Some possibly unfamiliar words, or unfamiliar alternative uses of words, along with their definitions from the online Dictionary of Newfoundland English include:

b'y: boy, a male of any age; a male of any age; a frequent term of address; a marker of informality or intimacy

fish: Cod, Newfoundlanders will ask you if you will take "herring or fish", "salmon or fish?"; meaning by the latter nothing more, and nothing less than Cod.

flake: a platform built on poles and spread with boughs for drying cod-fish on the foreshore

rind: bark of a tree or plant

maggoty: full of maggots. Of cod-fish improperly cured and infested with the larvae of blow-flies

cake: cake of bread; hard rounded, dry ship's biscuit, bread, hardtack

1 comment:

  1. "Dictionary of Newfoundland English Online." Newfoundland and Labrador Heritage/Patrimoine de Terre-Neuve et du Labrador--Entry Page: Newfoundland and Labrador Heritage. N.p., n.d. Web. 19 Apr. 2012. <http://www.heritage.nf.ca/dictionary/

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