Dictionary of Newfoundland English: Second Edition [With Supplement]

By J.D.A. Widdowson, W.J. Kirwin, G.M. Story

Book Overview

The Dictionary of Newfoundland English, first published in 1982 to regional, national, and international acclaim, is a historical dictionary that gives the pronunciations and definitions for words that the editors have called "Newfoundland English." The varieties of English spoken in Newfoundland date back four centuries, mainly to the early seventeenth-century migratory English fishermen of Cornwall, Devon, Dorset, and Somerset, and to the seventeenth- to the nineteenth-century immigrants chiefly from southeastern Ireland. Culled from a vast reading of books, newspapers, and magazines, this book is the most sustained reading ever undertaken of the written words of this province. The dictionary gives not only the meaning of words, but also presents each word with its variant spellings. Moreover, each definition is succeeded by an all-important quotation of usage which illustrates the typical context in which word is used.

This well-researched, impressive work of scholarship illustrates how words and phrases have evolved and are used in everyday speech and writing in a specific geographical area. The Dictionary of Newfoundland English is one of the most important, comprehensive, and thorough works dealing with Newfoundland. Its publication, a great addition to Newfoundlandia, Canadiana, and lexicography, provides more than a regional lexicon. In fact, this entertaining and delightful book presents a panoramic view of the social, cultural, and natural history, as well as the geography and economics, of the quintessential lifestyle of one of Canada's oldest European-settled areas. This second edition contains a supplement offering approximately 1500 new or expanded entries, an increase of more than 30 per cent over the first edition. Besides new words, the supplement includes modified and additional senses of old words and fresh derivations and usages.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0802068197
• ISBN13: 9780802068194
• Release Date: November 1990
• Publisher: University of Toronto Press
• Length: 847 Pages
• Weight: 3.11 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.7" x 6.8" x 9.9"

Customer Reviews

Absolutely necessary for a trip to Newfoundland

The Canadian province of Newfoundland is a gorgeous land where the people sprinkle their English with a colorful 'brogue'. Their heritage comes from Irish, English, Scottish, French and Native American and Europe with a bit of American from the US forces that were there in WW II....and the language includes some colloquial (slang-type) words that are difficult to understand...what's fun is that this book by scholars cuts through the mystery of some menu items like what's a jigg's dinner to Cod cheeks to other folklore and sayings...it's a lot of fun to take with you on your trip....or for a linguist -- necessary to have on your shelf.

The Definitive OED for Newfoundland

Any observant English speaker who visits Newfoundland and Labrador soon realizes that English as spoken by Newfoundlanders on this beautiful, boggy island in an isolated corner of North America, is an incredibly ingenious, imaginative, endearing, rich, pungent, and delightful language. This amazing book, the life's work of a team of excellent and dedicated scholars at Memorial University of Newfoundland in St. Johns, Newfoundland, reflects the rich linguistic and literary history of the extraordinary sturdy people of Newfoundand and all aspects of their unique reality--their net-mending and barking, their cod fishing and salt-drying, their seafaring life, and their sweet, heartbreaking lives in the isolated fishing villages in the outports and coves of this island--which now struggles under a cod-fishing moratorium that has largely destroyed the economic base of their unique way of life. Based on wide reading of the literature of Newfoundland, this definitive dictionary reflects the evolution of their language, their delicious slang, their sayings and proverbs, and their folk tales and stories. On winter evenings in the remote cities of the East Coast, with this book one can recreate in one's mind something of that rich heritage and way of life.