DCHP-3

gallery

DCHP-2 (Oct 2016)
n. — Newfoundland & Quebec, Housing

an open, roofed area along the front and sometimes the sides of a house; a porch or veranda.

Type: 5. Frequency — In Newfoundland and Quebec, gallery refers not only to a building dedicated to art exhibitions, but to an elevated structure along the side of a house, chiefly called a "porch" or "veranda" elsewhere (COD-2, s.v. "gallery" (5)).
Boberg (2012: 497) lists gallery as one of many Gallicisms in Quebec, i.e. lexical and grammatical transfers from French. While Gallicisms sometimes arise out of need to comply with local signage dictated by Quebec's language laws, Boberg notes that the source of gallery in Quebec English is unclear and is likely a result of mere "contact between the two speech communities". The term has similarly gained salience in the US in the Gulf States, Arizona and Texas due to the influence of Louisana French (DARE, s.v. "gallery").
The origin of gallery in Newfoundland and Labrador English is less clear, as French populations on the island have been largely restricted to Acadians settling along the southern west coast in the early 19th century (Clarke 2010b: 113). However, gallery has been a part of nautical vocabulary for hundreds of years, with attestations in OED-3 dating back to 1627 (OED-3, s.v. "gallery" (2d)). Defined as 'a balcony built outside the body of a ship, at the stern, or at the quarters', it is likely that this maritime term was generalized in Newfoundland English to refer to similar structures on land (Clarke 2010b: 118).
See also COD-2, s.v. "gallery" (5), which is marked "N Amer (esp. Que., Nfld, & Gulf States)", DNE, s.v. "gallery".

Quotations

1833
This scene of attraction opened on the 16th, at the Government House, the use of which had been kindly granted on the occasion. [...] A room to the side was occupied by the band of the 15th Regiment, which, with the pipers of the 79th Highlanders, stationed on the gallery, gratified the company during the day, with a selection of fashionable and favourite airs.
1882
Witnesses stated that the appearance of things in the house was very wretched; that testatrix was usually poorly dressed, and sometimes appeared on the gallery in rear of the house clad only in a chemise.
1909
Stop a moment though, what is that peremptory cry of "woman" which comes to us through the open window? It is poor little Tommy, who wants us, and if you could only look into that little cot on the gallery your heart would ache for the little specimen of humanity that would meet your eyes. Motherless, deserted by his father, this more than half Eskimo boy of four years, lies there, tubercular through and through. He is kept on the gallery all day, and as he has been out for some time, begins to feel lonely and wants somebody near him.
1916
After giving the book-keeper orders as to the new scale of charges, [Peter Flint] walked out on the gallery overlooking the harbor, and stood to view the "Village Belle" moored off the wharf.
1956
Silently she moved through the hall to a side window, lifting the corner of the curtain and peeping out where she could see the front gallery. Yes, someone was there -- a man, tall, well dressed and carrying a briefcase.
1981
In the veranda or gallery, a short, thickly built young man in a tight blue jersey ran or slapped rough hands down our legs; and then we went into a small carpeted room.
1997
On a bitterly cold mid-winter morning in 1823, four men were out on the back gallery of a house on St. Jacques St. They were examining with interest a tiny ball, holding it in their fingers and rolling it about like a marble. [...] For a long time Skakel had wanted to be able to say he had "handled solid mercury." The time seemed to have come. Three younger teachers slept at the school. He woke them up. He told them he proposed breaking a mercury thermometer. If they wanted to see the result they should come out on the gallery. They hurried down.
2006
Lisa Post couldn't believe the scene that was playing out on the gallery in front of her home. Daniel Vanier, a man she had known for years, lay bleeding in front of the triplex in Lachine where he sometimes lived with his sister, while ambulance technicians worked frantically in a failed attempt to save his life.
2013
It was while the Symingtons were still owners in 1964 that The Gazette's Edgar Andrew Collard wrote in his All our Yesterdays column about an elderly woman named Florence Wickham who remembered seeing Sir John A. at Les Rochers when she was a little girl in 1886. Wickham described taking a horse-drawn cab into Riviere du-Loup with her mother and siblings one day and passing by Les Rochers. "Our mother exclaimed: 'Children, children, look out, there is Sir John MacDonald.' We obeyed, and saw a tall man in a coat standing on the gallery."

References

  • COD-2
  • Clarke (2010b)
  • DNE
  • Boberg (2012)
  • DARE
  • OED-3
    • "gallery"