Bed Lunch on a Duckish Brudge

You’re listening to A Way with Words, the show about language and how we use it.

I’m Grant Barrett.

And I’m Martha Barnette.

We heard from Carol Han Hefferton, who was born and raised in Newfoundland and lives there today,

And she wanted to share some words from her part of the world that might be surprising to everybody else.

One of the terms is bridge.

She points out that a bridge or a brudge in Newfoundland doesn’t have to be over water.

She uses it for her patio or deck.

How about that?

Yeah, so it’s spelled the same way, B-R-I-D-G-E.

Yep, yep.

So you might invite somebody to come out on the bridge for a yarn,

And you might do that when it’s duckish, which means it’s twilight.

And so you’re inviting somebody out on the porch.

That’s super interesting.

What else did she have?

Well, she notes that in Newfoundland, a porch is not the front steps.

It’s not the stoop.

It’s a room attached to the house, usually at the back, often next to the kitchen, that’s used either for storage or, she says, it’s what other people might call a mudroom.

She calls that a porch.

Oh, that’s cool.

I can get that.

I can get on board that.

Yeah.

The porch does kind of tend to be a mudroom even when it’s outside the house.

Right, right.

That’s where you leave those muddy boots.

And one more I’ll share with you right now is that she says that their daily meals are breakfast, midday dinner, and evening supper.

Any food outside these is a lunch.

Not lunch, a lunch.

Okay.

Yeah.

The whole supper versus dinner thing is so varied across all of North America and the United Kingdom.

Yeah.

Let’s not go there.

Yeah, but I did want to go to lunch because she points out that it’s a light snack that’s eaten just outside of those other three meals.

And in fact, you can have a bed lunch.

That’s a little snack right before bedtime.

That’s called a bed lunch.

How about that?

It reminds me of workplaces where the law mandates that you be given a lunch when you work certain hours.

But even if you’re on the overnight shift and you’re eating it at 3 a.m., they still call it a lunch.

That’s your lunch, yeah.

Well, I got a couple more to share later in the show, but I just thought those were really cool.

Thank you, Carol.

That’s cool.

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