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Posted Feb 26, 2015, 11:23 AM
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I ♣ Baby Seals
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Join Date: Jul 2012
Location: Sin Jaaawnz, Newf'nland
Posts: 34,724
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VICE finally did us.
http://www.vice.com/en_ca/read/the-v...oundlander-675
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People talk different in every bay, cove, and public housing ghetto scattered across Greater Sin Jawns. It's like history dropped a character from a Shakespeare play into 8,000 different coves, cut them off from the outside world and let them fuck their cousins for a while. Depending on where you're from you might say "you" or "youse" or "ye" or "piss ass" in place of the general second person pronoun. Up in Catalina they pronounce the word "boil" all queer and my crowd in Grand Falls would consider this a "mega scald" on baywops everywhere. Everyone talks funny compared to everyone else and it's fucking super.
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There's certain universals, though. "Whaddyat?" is a universal greeting and also works pretty good as a pickup line if you have the charm to pull it off (HINT: if you have to ask, you don't). Also, Newfoundlanders all swear religiously. Like, both constantly and in Biblical vernacular. Everyone knows "Lord Thundering Jesus" but with a little effort you can turn basically any prayer and/or minor Old Testament prophet into a curse. "Jumping Jesus," "Gentle Blessed Mary Mother of God" and "Ever Beloved Elisha, Balding Bear-Fucker" all work.
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"Christ" and "fuck" are also more or less interchangeable, e.g. "what the fucking Christ" or "what the Christing fuck." Basically just drop the word fuck anywhere you can in a sentence and it's golden. Bay Etiquette also demands you end every declarative statement with 'wha', like "she's colder out tonight than a nun's cunt, wha?"
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Mostly though—and I can't stress this enough—if you aren't from Newfoundland, you probably can't speak like a Newfoundlander, so save yourself the embarrassment. Hearing some aging yuppie from southern Ontario come in trying to articulate a stock tourist phrase like, "How's she getting on, me old cock," or whatever else they charge you to recite at a Screech-In on George Street is like nails on a chalkboard. Unless you're Russell Crowe, do not attempt. Just sit back and drink in the full linguistic beauty of our bargain-bin Celtic lilt and tendency to pronounce the letter "H" in random places.
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I know a lot of Canadians think they're hard drinkers, but they're really not. People in the rest of Canada think a casual half case on a Friday night is hard drinking. Buddy. Please. A half case is warm-up drinking. A half case is what you serve children and the elderly.
If you want to go pro, you need a lot of practice. Most Newfoundlanders start their training early. A couple buddies of mine started getting shitfaced on the regular in the sixth grade. That's pretty young, but by grade nine, getting wasted behind the Ultramar or in the woods by The Gazebo (every town has The Gazebo) is par for the course. This is good because you get all the amateur mistakes out of the way early, like being such a state that you shit yourself in public or projectile vomit Sour Puss all over your buddy's shed because you coughed on a blunt. God forbid you end up like one of the Pentecostal kids who turn 19, go savage, and pass out in the bathroom of a St. John's strip club after their second Bacardi Breezer.
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You have to keep it fun, though. If you're a really obnoxious drunk and keep having the fuck beat out of you downtown, or you're at it all the time just to get through the day, you should probably stop. But if you can handle it, go to town. One of the most magical nights I ever had in St. John's was passing around a flask of Old Sam on top of the Supreme Court while we were blitzed out of our minds on hash. Newfoundland is best experienced half in the bag.
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Consider, first, the cultural background of the average Newfoundlander. Take every centuries-old stereotype you have about sailors, put them on a cold rock in the middle of the ocean and make them really, really poor. Then pile on all the charming quirks of Newfoundland history—"the first idiot in uniform who shows up in the cove with a boat gets supreme power" as a system of government, or the British Empire's love of feeding bastard Irishmen like us to German machine-guns—and let it simmer for a few generations. Throw in a heroic level of alcohol consumption and you're good to fucking go.
Obviously it's a gross stereotype that all Newfoundlanders go around starting fights. We'll finish a fight if you start one, but only skeets go around starting fights. Skeets are the distinctly Newfoundland variety of white trash hicks. The b'ys in Fox racing jackets hanging around outside Tim Hortons blasting AC/DC from their trucks at 2 AM? Definitely skeets. Dude with a heart tattoo that says "NAN" on his forearm, whacked out of his mind on oxys, holding up Needs Convenience with a butter knife? Mega skeet. Skeets will fuck you up.
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And it's not just the dudes. We were waiting around for a cab by Trinity Pub on George one night and they were kicking some tiny girl out of the bar and my buddy was like, "Are you okay?" and she flipped her shit and kicked him in the chest down two flights of stone stairs. Nonsense. As I was saying, some people just can't handle their liquor. Or coke, or whatever.
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Basically, the key to fighting—or generally just living—like a Newfoundlander is to not give a fuck. Do not give a good God damn. Life in Newfoundland is a black comedy. The weather is terrible, the jobs blow (assuming you're lucky enough to have one), there has literally never been a good government in 500 years, we hunted the cod and the Beothuk to extinction, and everyone upalong still thinks we're a fucking punchline. So have a laugh on the way to the grave. What does it matter how you talk or drink or fuck if you're having a time? We were mastering absurdism before Camus was even a glimmer in his father's eye.
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Note to self: "The plural of anecdote is not evidence."
Last edited by SignalHillHiker; Feb 26, 2015 at 12:07 PM.
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