Posts by Bob Munro
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The 'wee' thing doesn't seem geographically based, but I'm fairly sure its a Scottish import.
Not the Glaswegian, street brawling, Billy Connolly-profane type of Scots: more the genteel, Presbyterian cold churches and gingerbread, highland dancing sort of Scot.
Billy Connolly: A Wee Afghani
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Loved the piece on 'The Cowboy President'.
I've followed The Bag for some time which uses the visual images of Bush to probe his psyche (amongst many other interesting things). This extends that examination to his own visual enthusiasms. Fascinating.
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Actually the whole section on speech in the 1966 encyclopedia is fascinating.
How about this little beauty in the vocabulary section.
Examples of the native words now in general use are the names of birds, fish, plants, and trees: kea, tui, hapuku, tarakihi, koromiko, raupo, and kauri. It is not likely that this element in the vocabulary will ever increase much.
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Thanks for the reference Robyn.
"Diphthong au of cow has a first element like the e of very, and a fronted second element – eu.
Some speakers turn it into a tripthong eiu by inserting a glide between the first and second elements – (abeut, abeiut) rather than (about) for about"
This was the way my uncle pronounced. It had a lovely lilting cadence to it. None of the nasel 'Nu Zillun' speak.
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Another verbal tic which I've heard suggested is a Scottish thing is the way NZers use the word 'wee' a lot in conversation.
""You have got to. Sure there was a lot of disappointment, and a lot of work went into it. But it has gone. You can't change it," McCaw said. "The first wee while you were frustrated. But as rugby players we are lucky. We get another chance to get back on the field and carry on."
Ritchie McCaw on Stuff today. Born and bred North Otago.
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My uncle grew up and lived all his life around Milton in Otago. He had the local variant of the burr that was softer and closer to what we think of as Scottish.
'Mouse' and 'house' tended towards 'moose' and 'hoose'.
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There's another astute astrologer operating out of the The Daily Mash.
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sorry - "belgium'
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The border between tig and tag runs through the North Island, somewhere south of Hamilton.
There's some other North/South and maybe generational borders too.
Try this one.
"We took a pottle, a peter and some belgian to the crib."
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I soon discovered why a young guy with very poor maths skills was promoted to running the store. He was the fall guy.
Exactly.
From The Guardian
The scandal at Société Générale took a dramatic new turn today when a lawyer acting for 100 small shareholders said he was suing the French bank, accusing it of insider trading and market manipulation.
The bank's woes deepened when Jérôme Kerviel, the "lone" rogue trader behind its €4.9bn (£3.6bn) losses, accused colleagues of similarly trading beyond their limits - and prosecutors said SocGen had been alerted by the Eurex derivatives market to the scale of his positions as long ago as November last year.