ship

• Format: Manuscript
• Language: English
• Published: 1963
• Subjects: English language > Dialects > Newfoundland and Labrador; Newfoundland
• Online Access: http://collections.mun.ca/cdm/ref/collection/elrcdne/id/55557

ship v A basic meaning of the verb "to ship" is to send by ship. It has long also been used in Newfoundland (and North America) to send by any other means. Another basic meaning (intransitive and transitive) is to go, or to be taken on, as a seaman aboard a ship, whence "shipping paper" for the relevant contract. In Newfoundland (and perhaps elsewhere) this meaning has been extended to cover any kind of employment, but I think that it is only here that this meaning is still commonly used, e.g., you ship a clerk, a dom- estic, etc., and they ship to you. In Newfoundland the verb has also been used for generations meaning to sell produce of the country, e.g. "Skipper Mark Chard shipped his fish" (oil, seals, berries, etc.,) to Slade's. Also, in Newfoundland, to ship out, or to limb out, a tree, means to cut off its branches, and, by metonymy, to ship out a man means to demolish him in a fist fight. PRINTED ITEM DNE-cit G.M.Story August 1963 Used I and Sup Used I and Sup 3 Used I shipped, ship green, GREEN, ship out, LIMB, SHIVE*. The source is listed as P 54-63 in DNE and only part of the cited quotation on card is in DNE.