PATTERSON ON NEWFOUNDLAND DIALECT. Ixv 



thing very indecent and improper. Thus, a violent attack on a woman's 

 chastity is called very ridiculous behavior, and an ill-conducted house 

 may be described as a very ridiculous one. 



Hind as a noun is invariably used to denote the bark of a tree and 

 as a verb to strip it off. The word bark on the other hand is only used 

 as a noun to denote the tan which the fisherman applies to his net and 

 sails, and as a verb to denote such an application of it. Thus he will 

 say, " I have been getting some juniper or black spruce rind to make 

 tan bark," or " I have been barking my net or sails," meaning that he 

 has been applying the tannin extract to them. 



One of the most singular peculiarities however of the dialect of New- 

 foundland, is the use of the word room to denote the whole premises of 

 a merchant, planter, or fisherman. On the principal harbors, the land 

 on the shore was granted in small plots measuring so many yards in 

 front, and running back two or three hundred yards with a lane between 

 Each of these allotments was called a room, and according to the way in 

 which it was employed, was known as a merchant's room, a planter's 

 room, or a fisherman's room. Thus we will hear of Mr. M's. upper room, 

 his lower room or his beach room, or we have Mr. H.'s room, the place 

 where he does business, at Labrador. One of these places descending 

 from father to son will be called a family room. 



Shall, probably the same as shell, but we find it as shale used by 

 oUer writers. Johnson defines it as " a husk, the case of seeds in 

 siliquous plants," quoting Shakspeare's line " leaving them but the 

 shales and husks of men," and Halliwell gives it as a noun meaning " a 

 husk " and as a verb " to husk or shell as peas." 



The word skipper is in universal use and so commonly applied, as 

 almost to have lost its original meaning of master of a small vessel. It 

 is used toward every person whom one wishes to address with respect, 

 and is almost as common as " Mr." is elsewhere. Generally the 

 Christian name is used after it, as skipper Jan, skipper Kish. In like 

 manner the word uncle is used without regard to relationship. In a 

 community every respectable man of say sixty years of age will be so 

 called by all the other people in it. 



Smoochin, hair-oil, or pomade. A young man from abroad, com- 

 mencing as clerk in an establishment at one of the outposts, was puzzled 

 by an order for a " pen'orth of smoochiri." The verb smooch is also 

 used as equivalent to smutch, to blacken or defile. We may hear such 



