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I bought my first industrial building way back in 1963 and since then estimate I’ve owned about a thousand or so across New Zealand, but mainly in Australia.
Back in the early 1960s the Aussies used to dismissively refer to them as sheds but soon abandoned that as the market grew and as here, described them as warehouses or factories, depending on their use.
That’s now gone in line with commercial real estate agents appetite for grandiose language. Now the warehouses have become the absurd “logistics centres”.
This language rot has spread to The Sydney Morning Herald which no longer refers to itself as a newspaper but instead, as a “masthead”. It’s a pretty good newspaper but plainly in need of some serious ear-boxing with its personnel responsible for this embarrassment.
But when it comes to language abuse our Tasman neighbours are mere babes in arms compared to New Zealand.
I refer of course to the use of Māori to describe everything, including endless entities for which there was no Māori equivalent, such as say the Reserve Bank and the like. The worst Māori abuse however is demanding name changes for long established European built cities.
When about 20 or so years back those bullshit artists demanded Wanganui, Wakatāne and Wangarei become Whanganui, Whakatāne, Whangarei and pronounced Fonganui, etc, THEY SIMPLY MADE THIS UP.
I say that as there were three Māori/English dictionaries written in the 19th century. All made the observation that there was no “F” sound in Māori, or indeed any Polynesian language other than Samoan, where it’s unique to them. But everyone went cowardly along with this crap.
The latest attempt to change a place-name is Petone. A bullshit Māori lobbyist group is demanding it now become “Pit-One”.
This is nonsense which they simply made up. Petone was of course the site of Wakefield’s first organised colony in New Zealand.
The settlers pronounced it as the relatively few Māori in the valley back in 1840 did, namely PETONE. They had no interest in doing otherwise. But I expect the soppy city counci,l led by a bearded former non-descript government clerk, will fall into line and do as bid.
This patronising rubbish must stop. Cease using Māori names for not just the Reserve Bank but the Health Department, Foreign Affairs and indeed all government departments, not one of which had a pre-European equivalent entity.
And finally, let’s get back to correct grammar and, instead of “Health New Zealand”, revert to “The Health Department”.
It’s an extraordinary and possibly unique to New Zealand curiosity that every change of government in the post-war year has seen an expensive and unnecessary re-naming of many government departments, without rhyme or reasons justifying this. This practice is a classic case of spending other people’s money.
This article was originally published by No Punches Pulled.
