a grain of its vigour. A man tells you, 'if you can speer it, to
send a beerer with a bottle of bare,' and the clergyman excruciates
you by praying in church, 'Speer us, good Lord.' The English
pronunciation of A and E is in most words transposed. Barbados has a
considerable number of provincialisms of dialect. Some of these, as
the constant use of 'Mistress' for 'Mrs.,' are interesting as
archaisms, or words in use in the early days of the Colony, and which
have never died out of use. Others are Yankeeisms or vulgarisms;
others, again, such as the expression 'turning cuffums,' i.e.
summersets, from cuffums, a species of fish, seem to be of local
origin."

In a note hereto appended, the author gives a list of English words
of peculiar use and acceptation in Barbados.

[33] To the same effect writes Anthony Trollope:

"But if the black people differ from their brethren of the other
islands, so certainly do the white people. One soon learns to know--
a Bim. That is the name in which they themselves delight, and
therefore, though there is a sound of slang about it, I give it here.
One certainly soon learns to know a Bim. The most peculiar
distinction is in his voice. There is always a nasal twang about it,
but quite distinct from the nasality of a Yankee. The Yankee's word
rings sharp through his nose; not so that of the first-class Bim.
There is a soft drawl about it, and the sound is seldom completely
formed. The effect on the ear is the same as that on the hand when a
man gives you his to shake, and instead of shaking yours, holds his
own still, &c., &c." ("The West Indies," p. 207).