Recognize this? I know it all too well – it’s everywhere – in the strawberry bed, inbetween the paving stones, around all the shrubs – anywhere there’s an empty spot in the garden, it’s there.
I didn’t know what it was called, so I submitted this photo to PlantNet, a plant identification app. It gave me a few choices. I picked the one that seemed to be the best fit, and I asked the 9,800 members of the Newfoundland Gardening Facebook page if I was right.
They confirmed my diagnosis – sheep sorrel, a prolific weed with the longest runners you’ve ever seen, but better than goutweed. They also shared with me the different names that they use for it — sourweed, sally sucker, and sally sour are just a few. The Dictionary of Newfoundland English also includes: sally cives, sally saucer, sweet leaf, and laddie sucker.
I’m not surprised that there are so many different terms used here to describe one common weed; Newfoundlanders seem to have multiple terms for everything. The 770 pages of the Dictionary of Newfoundland English are a testament to the inventiveness and fecundity of Newfoundland speech. This quote from the Dictionary’s preface, written by a famous Newfoundlander, sums it up well:
Those who know Newfoundland and Newfoundlanders, who have acquaintance or intimacy with the place and its people, know that, even more than its emphatic scenery, sadistic climate, and unutterable politics, the most salient and irresistible characteristic of Newfoundland life is the speech (in all its superb flavours) of its people. There simply has been and is nothing like it anywhere else. Newfoundland speech has melody and pulse, terseness and exuberance, tone and variety, combinations of devious and subtle rhetoric, artfulness of designation, pungency of narrative and compression, proverb and story – it is like nothing so much as a self-generating festival of unselfconscious lexical testing, celebration, and play.
Rex Murphy, Preface to the Dictionary of Newfoundland English
There you have it – the reason why a lowly weed has at least 8 different names on an island with less than 500,000 people. But whatever you call the damn things, they’re a right pain in the arse. I’m drove off the head by ’em!
Love this post! Sounds like you are committed to becoming as close to a real Newfoundlander as you can. I’m happy for you. And I’m happy that the most prolific weed is better than gout weed.
Assuming “I’m drove off the head by ’em” means something like they’re driving you nuts, yes?
Also…. of course Rex Murphy writes about Newfoundland language!
Yes, driving me nuts. But better than the goutweed you had to contend with!
He was a jerk but I did love to listen to the Honourable John Crosbie, MP for St. John’s West.
And I see your learning the Newfoundland art of colourful language as we speak! I loved the description of Newfoundlanders….classic! Good luck with your ‘whatever you want to call it’ pain in the arse!