<div dir="ltr"><h1 id="gmail-headline" class="gmail-headline" style="visibility: visible;">Has a Canadian Slur Lost Its Sting?</h1>
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<p class="gmail-byline-dateline"><span class="gmail-byline">By <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/by/craig-s-smith" title="More Articles by CRAIG S. SMITH"><span class="gmail-byline-author">CRAIG S. SMITH</span></a></span><time class="gmail-dateline" datetime="2017-06-03T10:07:57-04:00">JUNE 2, 2017</time>
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<span class="gmail-caption-text">Irene Sankoff and David Hein,
the writers of the musical “Come From Away,” in New York in February.
The show has renewed interest in Newfoundland.</span>
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Damon Winter/The New York Times </span>
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<p class="gmail-story-body-text gmail-story-content">Newfoundland, the last of Britain’s North American colonies to join <a href="http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/international/countriesandterritories/canada/index.html?inline=nyt-geo" title="More news and information about Canada." class="gmail-meta-loc">Canada</a>,
is enjoying newfound attention thanks to the hit Broadway musical “Come
From Away.” But if you see the show, don’t expect to hear talk about
“Newfies,” a colloquial term for the island’s residents.</p><p class="gmail-story-body-text gmail-story-content">Use
the word at your peril: To some Newfoundlanders it is offensive, a
vestige of the derision toward locals expressed by some American G.I.s
stationed there during World War II.</p><p class="gmail-story-body-text gmail-story-content">For
decades stoic Newfoundlanders have endured national ridicule, the butt
of jokes that cast residents of one of the country’s more remote corners
as bumpkins and dimwits. Recently, though, a sociologist at McMaster
University in Ontario has been looking into whether the term retains its
sting among younger people. He found that attitudes were mixed and that
time had diluted the word’s potency.</p><p class="gmail-story-body-text gmail-story-content">There is <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=oly2BXS8Z3YC&pg=PA58&dq=Moreover,+it+is+the+first+recorded+public+usage+of+the+slur+%22Newfie.%22&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjHqI-6lYTUAhVm0oMKHUM1AXQQ6AEIJjAA#v=onepage&q=Moreover%2C%20it%20is%20the%20first%20recorded%20public%20usage%20of%20the%20slur%20%22Newfie.%22&f=false">evidence</a>
of the word’s use as early as 1938, but according to lore, the term’s
full fury developed during the war, when soldiers rode between bases on
the Newfoundland Express, the island’s now defunct poke-along train. The
train was sarcastically called the “Newfie Bullet,” and “Newfie” became
synonymous with all things slow. “Newfie” appeared in a dictionary of
American slang published during the war.</p> <a class="gmail-visually-hidden gmail-skip-to-text-link" href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/02/world/canada/has-a-canadian-slur-lost-its-sting.html?module=WatchingPortal®ion=c-column-middle-span-region&pgType=Homepage&action=click&mediaId=thumb_square&state=standard&contentPlacement=12&version=internal&contentCollection=www.nytimes.com&contentId=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.nytimes.com%2F2017%2F06%2F02%2Fworld%2Fcanada%2Fhas-a-canadian-slur-lost-its-sting.html&eventName=Watching-article-click&_r=0#story-continues-1">Continue reading the main story</a>
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<h2 class="gmail-module-heading">Related Coverage</h2>
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<span class="gmail-title">Review: ‘Come From Away,’ a Canadian Embrace on a Grim Day</span>
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<p class="gmail-story-body-text gmail-story-content" id="gmail-story-continues-2">“I
hate the word,” said Overton Colbourne, 69, a professional engineer
from Newfoundland who grew up at a time when the word delivered the
sharpest slap. “I think it’s ugly.”</p>
<p class="gmail-story-body-text gmail-story-content" id="gmail-story-continues-3">The sociologist, <a href="http://mcmaster.academia.edu/JamesBaker">James Baker</a>, 42, a proud Newfoundlander himself, grew up knowing the word as a slur. But when he <a href="http://sociologyontherock.tumblr.com/post/154819723075/newfie-as-ethnophaulism-the-views-of-white-youth">talked to</a>
students at Memorial University in Newfoundland, where he earned his
Ph.D., he found that the term had become “context dependent,” he said in
a telephone interview, meaning that whether or not it is offensive
depends on how it is used and by whom.</p><p class="gmail-story-body-text gmail-story-content">It
can be taken as either an insult or an endearing nickname these days,
he said, and young Newfoundlanders don’t need a field guide to
understand which is which.</p><figure id="gmail-media-100000004985206" class="gmail-media gmail-photo embedded gmail-layout-large-horizontal gmail-media-100000004985206 gmail-ratio-tall">
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<span class="gmail-caption-text">“A production of Come From Away” in New York in February.</span>
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Sara Krulwich/The New York Times </span>
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<p class="gmail-story-body-text gmail-story-content">Dr.
Baker said he believed that young Newfoundlanders had reclaimed the
term as a word they used to refer to themselves, a common sociological
reaction among discriminated groups, the way some use the word “queer.”</p>
<p class="gmail-story-body-text gmail-story-content" id="gmail-story-continues-4">“Certainly,
there was a mixed sense among the youth that I interviewed,” Dr. Baker
said. “Some said, ‘Yes, I could be offended,’ and others said they
weren’t even offended by ‘Newfie’ jokes.”</p>
<p class="gmail-story-body-text gmail-story-content" id="gmail-story-continues-5">Dr.
Baker argues that “Newfie” is an ethnophaulism, a derogatory word or
expression used to describe a racial or ethnic group, because he
believes that white Newfoundlanders are a distinct ethnicity. Asked why,
he cited, among other things, the existence of Newfinese, a colloquial
mix of 17th- and 18th-century English, Irish and French that is still
spoken in rural communities on the island.</p><div class="gmail-newsletter-signup gmail-auto-newsletter" id="gmail-newsletter-promo">
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<p class="gmail-story-body-text gmail-story-content">A
distinct language is one of the markers for ethnicity (as opposed to
race), he explained. While most linguists consider Newfinese a dialect,
not a language, many concede that it is one of the most distinctive
dialects in the world.</p>
<p class="gmail-story-body-text gmail-story-content" id="gmail-story-continues-6">“Newfie”
jokes proliferated in the years after World War II, mostly
interchangeable with those about Poles or the Irish before them. One of
the more benign examples: “Newfies make the best astronauts because they
took up space in school.”</p><p class="gmail-story-body-text gmail-story-content">Newfoundlanders mostly took it in stride — with a few notable exceptions. Last year, Walmart <a href="http://www.thetelegram.com/news/local/2016/2/23/walmart-pulls-newfie-t-shirts-4445507.html">withdrew</a>
a St. Patrick’s Day T-shirt featuring the term from its stores after
public complaints by Bob Hallett, a founding member of the Newfoundland
rock band Great Big Sea. There was also a minor uproar among some
Newfoundlanders a few years back when a town in Nova Scotia named a
gravel road <a href="http://www.thewesternstar.com/news/regional/2013/9/16/halifax-response-to-naming-of-newfie-lan-3392310.html">Newfie Lane</a>.</p><p class="gmail-story-body-text gmail-story-content">“<a href="http://comefromaway.com/">Come From Away</a>”
recounts the story of how Newfoundlanders welcomed 7,000 airline
passengers who were diverted to the small town of Gander after the Sept.
11, 2001, terrorist attacks. The show’s name is a Newfoundland
vernacular phrase for “outsiders.”</p><p class="gmail-story-body-text gmail-story-content">Irene
Sankoff, who wrote the musical with David Hein, said Newfoundlanders in
the production had made it clear that the term “Newfie” was not
welcome.</p>
<p class="gmail-story-body-text gmail-story-content" id="gmail-story-continues-7">“We
grew up on ‘Newfie’ jokes,” Mr. Hein said. “When we wrote our show it
was really to honor and say thank you, so we weren’t interested in using
that word.”</p><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/02/world/canada/has-a-canadian-slur-lost-its-sting.html?module=WatchingPortal®ion=c-column-middle-span-region&pgType=Homepage&action=click&mediaId=thumb_square&state=standard&contentPlacement=12&version=internal&contentCollection=www.nytimes.com&contentId=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.nytimes.com%2F2017%2F06%2F02%2Fworld%2Fcanada%2Fhas-a-canadian-slur-lost-its-sting.html&eventName=Watching-article-click&_r=0">https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/02/world/canada/has-a-canadian-slur-lost-its-sting.html?module=WatchingPortal®ion=c-column-middle-span-region&pgType=Homepage&action=click&mediaId=thumb_square&state=standard&contentPlacement=12&version=internal&contentCollection=www.nytimes.com&contentId=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.nytimes.com%2F2017%2F06%2F02%2Fworld%2Fcanada%2Fhas-a-canadian-slur-lost-its-sting.html&eventName=Watching-article-click&_r=0</a><br clear="all"><br>-- <br><div class="gmail_signature">=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+<br><br> Harold F. Schiffman<br><br>Professor Emeritus of <br> Dravidian Linguistics and Culture <br>Dept. of South Asia Studies <br>University of Pennsylvania<br>Philadelphia, PA 19104-6305<br><br>Phone: (215) 898-7475<br>Fax: (215) 573-2138 <br><br>Email: <a href="mailto:haroldfs@gmail.com" target="_blank">haroldfs@gmail.com</a><br><a href="http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/%7Eharoldfs/" target="_blank">http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/~haroldfs/</a> <br><br>-------------------------------------------------</div>
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