PATTERSON OX NEWFOUNDLAND DIALECT. xlvii 



Barvel, sometimes pronounced barbel, a tanned sheepskin used by 

 fishermen, and also by splitters, as an apron to keep the legs dry, but 

 since oilskin clothes have come into use, not now generally employed. 

 "Wright in his " Dictionary of Obsolete and Provincial English," marks 

 it as Kentish, denoting " a short leather apron worn by washerwomen or 

 a slabbering bib." Eecently I heard of its being used by a fisherman 

 on our Nova Scotia coast, to describe the boot or apron of a sleigh or 

 carriage. 



Barm is still commonly, if not exclusively used in Newfoundland for 

 yeasty as it is in some parts of England. So billets, for small sticks of 

 wood has now, with most English-speaking people, gone out of use. 

 But it is quite usual in Newfoundland to hear of buying or selling billets, 

 putting in billets, &c. The word, however, seems to have been intro- 

 duced from the Norman French. 



Brews. This is a dish, which occupies almost the same place at a 

 Newfoundlander's breakfast table, that baked beans are supposed to do 

 on that of a Bostonian. It consists of pieces of hard biscuit, soaked 

 over night, warmed in the morning, and then eaten with boiled codfish 

 and butter. This is plainly the old English word usually written breivis. 

 and variously explained. Johnson defines it as " a piece of bread soaked 

 in boiling fat pottage made of salted meat." This is about the New- 

 foundland sense, substituting, as was natural, fish for meat. Webster 

 gives it as from the Anglo-Saxon, and represents it as obsolete in the 

 sense of broth or pottage, " What an ocean of breivis shall I swim in," 

 (Beaumont & Fletcher), but as still used to denote " bread soaked in 

 gravy or prepared in water and butter." This is the relative New 

 England dish. Wright gives it in various forms brewet, breivis, &c., as 

 denoting pottage, but says that in the North of England they still have 

 " a brewis, made of slices of bread with fat broth poured over them." 



Child is used to denote a female child. This is probably going out 

 of use, as gentlemen, who have resided for some time on the island, say 

 they have never heard it, but I am assured by others, that on the occasion 

 of a birth they have heard at once the enquiry, " Is it a boy or a child f 

 Wright gives it as Devonshire, and it was in use in Shakspeare's time, 

 " Winter's Tale," III, 3, " A boy or a childe, I wonder." In two 

 instances I have heard of its being used in this sense some years ago in 

 Nova Scotia. The one was by an old man originally from the United 

 States, who used Shakspeare's enquiry " A boy or a child." Again in a 



