lvili PROCEEDINGS. 
held in the two hands, and a large yaffle, expressing what a man would 
encircle with his arms. The word is also used as a verb, meaning to 
gather them up in this manner. The Standard Dictionary gives it as 
used locally in the United States in this last sense. But the New- 
foundlanders do not limit it to this. They will speak of a yaffle, e. 7., 
of crannocks. Wright and Halliwell give it as used in Cornwall as a 
noun denoting an armful. 
Yarry, early, wide awake, as a yarry man or a yarry woman. Wright 
and Halliwell give this word spelled yary as Kentish, meaning sharp, 
quick, ready. They, however, give yave as another word, though almost 
if not quite identical in meaning. They are closely related, appearing 
in Anglo-Saxon as gearw or gearo, and in kindred languages in various 
forms. In old English yare is used as an adjective meaning ready. 
This Tereus let make his ships yare.—Chaucer. Legend of Philomene. 
It is applied to persons meaning ready, quick. 
Be yare in thy preparation.— Shakespeare, Twelfth Night, iii. 4. 
And as an adverb, meaning quickly. 
Yare, yare, good Iris, quick.—Ibid., Anthony and Cleopatra., v. 9. 
It is well known that the word gir/ is not found in the Anglo-Saxon 
or other languages of the North of Europe, and that it only occurs in 
two places in the authorized English version of the bible, showing that 
at the time that version was made, it was only beginning to be intro- 
duced into England. In Newfoundland it is only where the people 
have been intermixed with persons from cther quarters that it has come 
into use, and in more remote places it is perhaps not used yet, the word 
“maid” pronounced m’yid being generally employed instead. 
The use of fo as meaning this, as in to-day, to-night and to-morrow 
is continued in to year, this year and fo once at once. 
I may also notice that they use the old form wn or on in the composi- 
tion of words denoting the negative, where present usage has zz or an. 
Thus they say unproper or onproper, undecent, unlegal, &e. 
There are also the remains of old English usage in their use of the 
pronouns. Thus every object is regarded as either masculine or femi- 
nine, and is spoken of as either ‘he ” or “she.” ‘ It” seems only to 
be used where it has been acquired by intercourse with others. A man 
speaking of his head will say ‘“‘he aches.” Entering the court house I 
heard a witness asked to describe a codtrap. He immediately replied, 
