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bay n Cp OED ~ sb2 1 'indentation of the sea into the land'
(1383-), DAE 1 (1612-) for sense 1; for proverb in sense 3 cp, among other U S
sources, F BARBOUR, Proverbs ... of Illinois (1965), p. 21 'you can take the boy
out of the country. . .'; for combs. in sense 4: OED sb2 5: ~ ice
(1853), cp DAE bay man 1 (1641-) and DC bayman Nfld (1964), bay-noddie Nfld
(1907), bay seal (Nfld: 1772, 1958); for ~ wop, see WOP1 'wasp' and EDD
johnny: ~ wap, ~ wops 'simpleton.'
1 A large
indentation of the sea lying between two widely-separated headlands, commonly comprising
numerous harbours, coves, inlets, islands and fishing grounds; the coastal strip of such
an indentation; collectively, all the bays, harbours and settlements or 'outports' of
Newfoundland.
[1583] 1940 Gilbert's Voyages &
Enterprises ii, 398 [Hayes' narrative] So againe Tuesday the 30 of July (seven weekes
after) we got sight of land, being immediately embayed in the Grand bay, or some other
great bay. 1620 WHITBOURNE 2-3 All along the coast of this Countrey, there are many
spacious and excellent Bayes, some of them stretching into the land, one towards another,
more than twenty leagues. [1770] 1866 WILSON 146 A few professors [of religion] are
scattered through the different bays. [1794] 1968 THOMAS 77, 97 Capelin Bay is more
properly a Harbour, being a mile and a half in length and not more than a quarter of a
mile across in any part... Placentia Bay is one of the largest Bays in this Country. From
St Mary's Bay to Cape Chapeau Rouge (which are the two angles) is twelve Leagues athwart.
The Length of the Bay is more considerable. The Harbours, Creeks, Coves and Inlets in it
are many. 1819 ANSPACH 295 The whole Island abounds with creeks, roads, and very fine
harbours; also spaces covered with pebbles ... vast bays, of several leagues in breadth
and depth, are also very numerous on these coasts. Vessels lie in the smaller bays and
harbours in perfect security, being well sheltered inside by the mountains. 1836
[WIX]2 143 The inhabitants of Conception Bay, although a neck of land of only
a few miles extent separates them from Trinity Bay, differ from the inhabitants of the
latter, as much as if they were of a distant nation; the same may be said of the
difference between those who live in Placentia and those who live in Fortune Bay. 1866
WILSON 196 They, therefore, invited the preachers from the bay, who, on coming to St
John's, were received with much kindness. 1908 DURGIN 22-3 A Newfoundland trader goes up
and down the coast in a schooner, entering all the bays, their arms, coves and harbors,
wherever a few fisher-folk live or there are towns... In White Bay, Notre Dame Bay, and
many of those bays remote from St John's, there are many old people living who have never
been out of the little cove they were born in. 1917 Christmas Bells 1 Holyrood, at
the bottom of Conception Bay, had become one of our favourite summer resorts. 1946 MACKAY
(ed) 336 Great Britain contended that the term 'bays'. . must be construed in accordance
with the meaning commonly assigned to 'bays' by fishermen in 1818, and it appealed to the
testimony of the maps of that period, maps in which the waters in dispute were clearly
designated as 'bays.' The United States [declared] that the term 'bays' referred only to
small indentations and that the marine league must be measured from a line following the
sinuosities of the coast [rather than from a line drawn from headland to headland]. 1973
WADEL 89 [His wife] was from the 'Bay.' 1976 HEAD 159 The harbour served merely as
a shelter for the ocean-going ships, laid up for the fishing season, while the actual
summer activities took place on the bay. 1979 Salt Water, Fresh Water 256
Different bays had different types of timber, and the waves, the tides is different,
every bay is different.
2 A stretch of open water in an
ice-field; LAKE; LEAD2.
1924 ENGLAND 24 The whelping
ice has to be low and more or less open, preferably with plenty of 'leads' through
it—leads or bays, of course, being stretches of free water.
3 Phr (go) around the bay: to visit a number of
coastal 'settlements.'
[1955] 1980 Evening Telegram 25
June, p. 6 Magistrate Trickett of Clarenville made a trip around the bay and held court
at Trinity Bay and Brookfield travelling as far as Musgrave Harbour. 1979 ibid 2 June, p.
20 I minds last year me and the woman were around the bay.
[proverb] you can take a man out of the bay, but you can't take
the bay out of the man ([1954] 1972 RUSSELL 22).
1974 Can
Forum Mar, p. 25 Ted Russell, our leading local playwright, and a great outharbourman
himself, is fond of quoting a line from the eleventh epistle of Horace, caelum non
animum, mutant; qui trans mare current which he translates exactly in a Newfoundland
proverb: 'You can take the man out of the Bay, but you can't take the Bay out of the
man.'
4 Attrib, comb, cpd bay blue: sea blue.
[1923] 1946 PRATT 186 "The Big Fellow": A huge six-footer, / Eyes
bay blue, / And as deep.
bay boat: vessel stopping at
'settlements' around Newfoundland and on the Labrador with passengers, mail and supplies;
COASTAL BOAT.
1957 Daily News 9 Apr, p. 4 At that time
Norris Arm was the terminus of the 'bay boat.'
bay boy:
'outport' lad.
1920 WALDO 163 The children cry: 'Bay boy, bay boy,
come to your supper, / Two cods' heads and a lump o' butter.'
bay bun: type of baked preparation with cubes of pork fat as
an ingredient; PORK BUN. Cp TOUTIN.
1979 Salt Water, Fresh
Water 215 Now what's a bay bun? That's a molasses bun with pork in it, raw pork. It
will freeze and, gee, they'll last and they won't dry up... You can keep it a month.
bay caplin: American smelt (Osmerus mordax), an
inshore species found as far north as the Hamilton Inlet-Lake Melville area of Labrador.
1977 Inuit Land Use 265 Outside capelin are larger than bay
capelin. They appear with salmon in spring and are blue-backed, unlike bay capelin, which
are pale and small. Outside capelin are found mainly around outer seaward coasts, but bay
caplin inhabit bays the year round.
bay crew: servants
engaged in the enterprise of a 'planter' or 'merchant.' Cp CREW.
[1779] 1792 CARTWRIGHT ii, 496 n. They consumed all their
provisions before the time was expired, for which they were victualled, which was more
than the bay-crew did, who killed nothing of any consequence; had they done the same, all
hands must have been famished.
bay girl: young woman of the
'outports.'
1975 GUY 50 Perhaps you know some young maid from home
who is in service in Sin John's or going to school. However, she will cut you every time.
There is nothing so stuck up as a Baygirl in Sin John's ... or the other way
around.
bay hospital: small cottage hospital serving a
rural district or 'bay.'
1919 Journ of Assembly 314 The
third suggestion, Outport Hospitals, is one that has been discussed for some time... I am
strongly in favour of a ten-bed hospital conveniently situated in each of the principal
bays. The advantages of Bay hospitals have been ably shown by the recent letters of Dr
Grenfell.
bay ice: ice formed in a single winter on the
surface of a harbour; HARBOUR ICE, LOCAL: local ice.
1865
CAMPBELL 68 Bay-ice a few feet thick, pack-ice, and broken bergs of all sorts and sizes,
with anchor-ice below, all moving bodily through a rocky channel, must work notable
denudation at the bottom of the sea in this strait. [1916] 1972 GORDON 94 Cracks in the
bay-ice, and patches of open water off every point of land ... made travelling a
difficult business. 1977 Them Days ii (3), 45 When he come the bay ice was gone so
he come across the brook just above the wharves. 1979 TIZZARD 98 Sometimes during late
fall or early spring, when the water was rough or the bay ice had not yet thawed out, he
would walk the whole distance to Summerford [with the mail].
bay man, bayman: one who lives on or near a bay or harbour;
inhabitant of an 'outport'; OUT-HARBOUR: out-harbour man; sometimes with
derogatory connotations (cp bay wop).
[1772] 1792 CARTWRIGHT i,
190 After breakfast the sealers went home, and the St Lewis's-Bay-men accompanied them.
1865 CAMPBELL 55 In the middle of the night there was a disturbance. A reverend 'bayman'
went on deck and saw breakers, upon which he shouted, 'Breakers ahead!' [1900 OLIVER
& BURKE] 34 "Fanny's Harbor Bawn": I think you are a Northern man, a bayman, I
presume. 1910 GRENFELL 154 [The weather] had continued so rough that the small boats
belonging to the baymen had had little chance to retrieve their fortunes with the codfish
by going to the outside islands in pursuit of them. 1924 ENGLAND 171 As in all small
countries where inland travel is hard and where life clusters in bays (cf ancient
Greece), they cling to local attachments and think of themselves as, for example, 'White
Bay men,' 'Bonavista Bay men,' 'Conception Bay men,' and so on. Ibid 250 De baymen an' de
townies 'd fight, an' you couldn't stop it no ways. 1977 Inuit Land Use 103 The
early Settlers thought of themselves as 'baymen.' They depended almost solely on the game
they hunted in the confines of their bays. They rarely travelled 'outside' to hunt around
the coastal islands, and they went to the 'station'—the mission village—only to
trade and for religious services. 1979 POTTLE 85 So it was that bayman was set against
businessman, outport against city, haves against have-nots, striking loggers and their
families against everyone else.
bay noddy: mildly
derogatory, or self-depreciating, term for inhabitant of an 'outport'; see NODDY 1, 2.
1901 Christmas Review 6 Fifty years ago, one of the
expressions of contempt used by citizens of St John's, when speaking of outport men, was
'Bay-noddy . ' 1903 DUNCAN 141 'I'd give you a beatin'. . if I didn't have t' goa home
an' feed the goaats.' 'You's scared, you bay-[noddie]!' Billy taunted. 1920 WALDO 163 The
little boys have a mischievous way of teasing one another as 'bay noddies.' 1939 DULEY 59
'Rags to riches, and all for a little Bay-Noddy. I suppose she's as common as bog-water.'
P 245-61 We bay noddies [from the Bonavista Bay islands].
bay
price: price paid for fish by a local 'outport' merchant.
[1810] 1971 ANSPACH 34 The fish which they receive here in payment
at the Bay-price, they sen[d] to St John's where they get the full price.
bay salmon: variety of Atlantic salmon of limited migrating
range, frequenting coastal waters, estuaries and rivers; grilse.
1977 Inuit Land Use 137 Bay salmon migrate up-river in
August and September to spawn, and they winter in ponds or in sections of rivers where
there is a strong current. When they return to the bays in early July, their flesh is
white and they are then called slinks... These bay salmon are smaller than the outside
variety.
bay seal: small non-migratory seal of coastal
waters (Phoca vitulina); HARBOUR SEAL.
[1772] 1792
CARTWRIGHT i, 210 I saw several bay-seals on the ice there, and shot at two, but missed
them both. 1842 JUKES i, 309 [The] bay-seal, as its name denotes, is confined to the bays
and inlets, living on the coast all the year round, and frequenting the mouths of the
rivers and harbours. 1895 GRENFELL 173 When one year old the bay seal is called a 'jar
seal,'. . in the second year it is a 'doter,' and becomes speckled, in the third year, it
is a 'ranger,' and is then very beautiful, being checkered silver and black all over.
[1929] 1933 GREENLEAF (ed) 250 "The Change Islands Song": They talked about bay seals,
the mushrat, and the bear. T 391/2-67 Me and another feller killed a doter one
time—a bay seal, we'll say. 1977 Inuit Land Use 285 Some species, such as the
jar seal, referred to locally as the bay seal, are available throughout the year.
bay tilt: hut or cabin built in wooded area at the 'bottom'
of a bay for winter occupancy and activities; TILT, WINTER ~ .
1924 ENGLAND 313 ~ Rough hovel in isolated place. 1966 FARIS 44
[During the winter most of the early Cat Harbour] settlers lived in sod structures in
heavily wooded forests known as 'bay tilts,' which they left for the headland as soon as
fishing began again each year.
bay wop: contemptuous (city)
term for an 'outport' Newfoundlander (P 245-56).
1970 JANES 146
She was originally a young baywop whose family had recently moved to Milltown and settled
there. 1979 O'FLAHERTY 175 'Baywops' [in Janes' novel, House of Hate] are
generally seen ... as semi-retarded and contemptible.
bay work:
cutting wood, 'rinds,' etc, preparatory to a fishing voyage; cutting fire-wood for
winter use.
T 84/5-64 We were in the bay—all our bay work was
done with Uncle Sam. P 49-73 ~ After the preparation for the summer's fishing and while
waiting for the squid, the men go up the bay and cut their winter's firewood.
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