To say of a girl that she “blushed up like a bluerag” refers to the custom of enclosing a lump of blueing in a cloth when laundering clothes. “The wind baffles round the house” is a beautiful way of saying that it was blustering.
“Bruise” is a very popular dish of hard bread boiled with fish, and with “scrunchins” (pork) fried and put over it. It is the equivalent of Philadelphia’s famous “scrapple.” A guide, admitting that bread and tea are the staple articles of diet in many an outpost, said reflectively: “Yes, that’s all those people live on. Now there’s other things. There’s beans.”
When a man says that his hands are “hard afrore” (hard frozen) we remember Milton in “Paradise Lost,” “the air burns frore.” Frozen potatoes are “frosty tiddies.” Head is often called “heed.” “Tigyer,” said by an old man to a mischievous lad, means “Take yerself off.” “Is en?” is a way of saying “Is he?” An old man cut his finger and said that he had a “risen” on it, which is certainly more of a finality than a “rising.” “I’m going chock to Gargamelle” means “I’m going all the way to Gargamelle,” the latter name from “garçon gamelle,” said to signify “the boy who looks after the soup.”
Instead of “squashed,” “squatted” is a common word, as in the expression “I squatted my finger.” And there are many other provincialisms not in the dictionaries.
The fathom is a land-measure of length, as well as a sea-measure of depth. The leading dog of a team is six or seven “fathoms” ahead of the komatik.
“Start calm” means perfectly calm, and then they may say expressively “The wind’s up and down the mast.”
“Puddick” is a common name for the stomach.
“Take it abroad” is “take it apart”; “do you relish enough,” is “have you eaten plenty?” “Poor sign fish” means that fish are scarce. Woods that are tall are said to be “taunt.”
These few examples of distinctive phraseology might be multiplied a thousand-fold.
As for the proper names, a fascinating field of research lies before a patient investigator who commands the leisure. Here are but a few of countless examples that might be cited.