[QUOTE=Attack from the 3rd dimension]
There are a lot of Irish influenced phrases. For instance, the way they use the word ‘sure’, as in “He was completely lost, sure”. In parts of the island the accents are sufficiently similar that the Irish hospitality industry (hotels and such) would come and recruit here, since someone from the southern shore here could speak normally in Galway, and still charm the hell out of the tourists with their own real, yet essentially Irish, accent. Many of the other phrases are simply from Newfoundland and nowhere else, and you just have to learn what they mean.
Soon after I first moved to here, back in the last millenium, I had to go buy some nets from a netmaker located in Quidi Vidi (“kitty vitty”) which is essentially a small community located within the main city of St. John’s. I understood not a word that he spoke- not one word. Four years later I had to see him again, and I understood everything he said. I don’t think he had altered his speech at all in the interval.
Keep in mind that the weather is unreliable until well into the summer. It can snow in June. It can fog up throughout June. June is usually good for icebergs. In August the weather is reliable and warm-ish and the whale watching is excellent.
When I first moved here, I was out in the woods on Mother’s day and it started to snow a pretty hefty snow. I got back to my car and turned on the radio, to discover that a polar bear had swum ashore in Quidi Vidi. That was when I started to hear the Twilight Zone music in my head. That hasn’t happened since, although a few moose have wandered the streets in the last few years.
Its a great place to visit, and not a bad place to live. Eastcoastgirl is of course correct on the Newfie issue, it’s something that a Newfoundlander can call him- or her-self, but is potentially insulting from someone else. As a CFA* and a mainlander, I don’t use the term at all.
*Come From Away.
[/QUOTE]
wow, there are more of us on here than i thought! Newfoundland for the win, just come and you will love it.
For the record, every gig i do in Toronto now the first thing that gets commented on is the dialect I won’t clean it up for anything ![]()