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Newfie

Slang term for someone from Newfoundland

Summary

Slang term for someone from Newfoundland

Newfie (also Newf or sometimes Newfy) is a colloquial term used by Canadians and others for someone who is from Newfoundland. Many Newfoundlanders consider "Newfie" a slur first used by American and Canadian military forces stationed on the island. It is also the shortened name of the Newfoundland dog breed. The term is also associated with jokes from the mid-to-late 20th century that depicted "Newfies" as foolish, leading to a belief in the derogatory nature of the term.

Usage

During the Second World War, sailors on convoy duty nicknamed St. John's Newfiejohn.

The first edition of the Gage Canadian Dictionary, published in 1983, and the second edition of the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, published in 1987, both include usage notes describing the term 'Newfie' as offensive. However, neither the second edition of the Canadian Oxford Dictionary, published in 2004, nor the current edition of the Dictionary of Newfoundland English, published in 1998, make such a mention.

In March 2006, an Edmonton police officer was disciplined for using the word Newphie to describe the apprehension of an individual under the Mental Health Act.

References

References

  1. "Newfie Definition & Meaning". Dictionary.com.
  2. King, R. and Clarke, S. (2002), Contesting meaning: Newfie and the politics of ethnic labelling. Journal of Sociolinguistics, 6: 537–558. doi: 10.1111/1467-9481.00200
  3. Dunlop, Daniel T. "The Sinking of U90".
  4. "[http://www.heritage.nf.ca/dictionary/azindex/pages/3053.html Newfie]". ''[http://www.heritage.nf.ca/dictionary/ Dictionary of Newfoundland English]'', 2nd ed. 1998. Story, G. M.; Kirwin, W. J.; & Widdowson, J. D. A., eds. {{ISBN. 978-0-8020-6819-4. [[Toronto]]: [[University of Toronto Press]].
  5. (2006-03-12). "edmontonsun.com - Edmonton News - N-word draws flak".
Wikipedia Source

This article was imported from Wikipedia and is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Content has been adapted to SurfDoc format. Original contributors can be found on the article history page.

people-from-newfoundland-and-labrador regional-nicknames pejorative-demonyms canadian-english
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