PATTERSON ON NEWFOUNDLAND DIALECT. Ivii 



Webster gives this meaning as common in England, but not in the 

 United States, though he quotes W. Irving as writing " starving \vith 

 cold as well as hunger." 



Strouters, the outside piles of a wharf, whicli are larger and stronger 

 than the inner ones which are called shores. According to Wright in 

 the Somerset dialect it denotes anything that projects. 



Swinge, a form of singe, pronounced obsolete, but preserved in 

 various English Provincial dialects, is the only one heard here. It is 

 an ancient if not the original form of the word. Thus Spencer says, 

 " The scorching flame sore twinged a 1 his face." 



Till Tib's eve, an old English expression equivalent to the " Greek 

 Kalends," meaning never, is found here. The origin of the phrase is 

 disputed. The word Tib is said to have been a corruption of the proper 

 name Tabitha. If so the name of that good woman has been sadly 

 profaned, for it came to signify a prostitute 



" Every coistrel 

 That comes inquiring for his tib." Shakespeare, Pericles. 



But St. Tib is supposed by some to be a corruption of St. Ubes, 

 which again is said to be a corruption of Setubal. This, however, gives 

 no explanation of the meaning of the phrase, and there is really no saint 

 of the name. To me the natural explanation seems to be, that from 

 the utter unlikelihood of such a woman being canonized, persons would 

 naturally refer to her festival, as a time that would never come. 



Tilt, a log house such as lumbermen use ; a rough temporary shelter, 

 like a shanty in Canada, only instead of being built of logs laid hori- 

 z orially one on the other, it is usually composed of spruce or fir wood 

 placed vertically, and covered with bark. In Anglo-Saxon it appears as 

 telt and telde, from telden, to cover. According to the dictionaries from 

 Johnson, it is used to denote a tent, an awning or canopy, as over a 

 boat. 



Troth plight, one espoused or affianced. So Shakespeare 



This your son-in-law 

 Is troth plight to your daughter. Winters Tale. 



Tussock, a bunch or tuft of grass. It is marked in the dictionaries 

 as obsolete, but it is still in use in Newfoundland to denote the matted 

 tufts of grass found on the bogs. 



Yaffle, an armful, applied especially to gathering up the fish which 

 have been spread out to dry, a small yaffle denoting as many as can be 



