The following entry is from the Dictionary of Newfoundland English :gommel n also gommil JOYCE 264 gommul 'simple-minded fellow'; DINNEEN gamal 'stupid looking fellow.' Epithet for a stupid person; freq with foolish, etc; GOM.
1924 ENGLAND 221 'He must of went off his 'eed. to curse on de lightnin',' put in Arthur Roberts. 'Ondly a gommel [fool] 'd take a chance like dat.' 1937 DEVINE 25 ~ A stupid or foolish person. 1968 DILLON 143 That poor gommil, sure he don't know what you're talkin' about. C 70-11 When slightly irritated with him she calls him a foolish gommil. 1975 RUSSELL 51 'Come here,' said she, 'you foolish gommil, and help me.'
Gommil appears in "The Tangler" in Merrybegot, a collection of poems by Mary Dalton, the audio edition of which was narrated by Anita Best with Patrick Boyle on trumpet and flugelhorn; published by Rattling Books in 2005.
The Tangler
From the word go it was a thankee job—
We all knew—
But that tangler came pretty near to
Fooling up the whole works,
Blathering to this one and that one—
The foreman had like to
Flatten him—
A fierce little red-headed bantam,
Rearing out the big ones,
Ready to board
That tongue-flapping long-shanks,
That rawny ghost of a gommil.
