PATTERSON ON NEWFOUNDLAND DIALECT. Ixxv 



when the ice is breaking up, springing from cake to cake in 

 supposed imitation of the seal hunters; covel, a tub made to hold 

 blubber or oil ; cracky, a little dog ; crannocks on the west coast, 

 crunnocks to the north, small pieces of wood for kindling fires ; 

 the diddies, the nightmare ; dido, a bitch ; gandy, the fisher- 

 man's name for a pancake ; dwy, a mist or slight shower. " Is it 

 going to rain to-day V "No, its only a dwy," a Newfoundlander may 

 reply. So a snow dwy denotes a slight fall of snow, which is not 

 expected to come to much ; farl or varl, the cover of a book ; gly, a 

 sort of trap made with a barrel hoop, with net interwoven, and hook 

 and bait attached, set afloat to catch gulls and other marine birds known 

 as ticklaces and steerins, but what species is meant by the last two names 

 I have not ascertained ; jinker, there is such a word in modern English, 

 connected with jink, denoting a lively, sprightly girl, or a wag, but 

 among the Newfoundlanders the word must have had a different origin, 

 as with them it means an unlucky fellow, one who cannot or does not 

 succeed in fishing ; old teaks and jan?iies, boys and men who turn out 

 in various disguises and carry on various pranks during the Christmas 

 holidays, which last from 25th December to old Old Christmas day, 6th 

 January ; matchy, tainted, applied to salt beef or pork supplied to the 

 fishermen ; pelm, any light ashes, such as those from burnt cotton, card- 

 board, &c., also the light dust that arises from the ashes of wood and 

 some kinds of coal ; scrape, a rough road down the face of a bank or 

 steep hill, used specially in regard to such as are formed by sliding or 

 hauling logs down ; shimmt'ck, used on the west coast as a term of 

 contempt for one who born of English parents, attempts to conceal 

 or deny his birth in Newfoundland ; sprawls, scil. of snow, heavy drifts ; 

 sprayed, describing chapped hands or arms ; starrigan, a young tree, 

 which is neither good for firewood, or large enough to be used as timber, 

 hence applied with contempt to anything constructed of unsuitable 

 materials ; tolt, a solitary hill, usually somewhat conical, rising by itself 

 above the surrounding country ; truckly muck, a small two-handed ca r 

 for dogs, with a handle for a man to keep it straight ; toivtents, pork 

 cakes, made of pork chopped fine and mixed with flour; tuckamore, in 

 some places tuckamil, a clump of spruce, growing almost flat on the 

 ground, and matted together, found on the barrens and bleak exposed 

 places ; and willigiggw, half between a whisper and a giggle. 



A large proportion of the people of Newfoundland being uneducated, 

 pers ons trying to use fine English words often substitute one for another 



