Posts by ChrisW

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  • Hard News: Footnotes,

    A spectre is haunting Thorndon...

    Even before he died (in '84) the house possessed a malevolent force

    Muldoon died in 1992, it was his political death in 1984, but as if a spectre he haunted Thorndon and the House as a malevolent force for some years after.

    Gisborne • Since Apr 2009 • 851 posts Report

  • Hard News: What to Do?,

    For avoidance of doubt, in this clause 'parent' shall include the plural and plural the singular, and shall include grand-parent and grand-parent's parent, yea, even unto the seventh generation. :)

    Provided you smite them only with a mote, I think, or is it a moat in British Tory usage.

    On ethnicity, and seriously, I think half the problem stems from its root in Greek and Biblical Greek in particular, where ethnos meant a foreign nation (of heathens etc), hence the US or US-Anglo concept of 'ethnics' being everyone else but the plain vanilla whites; ethnicity applies to them, not 'us'.
    The other half of the problem being the effluxion of time and all that goes with it, migration, breeding, cultural change .... Still there's something useful in there.

    On Pakeha and tauiwi, and iwi or regional differences in usage, don't expect consistency within any iwi or region either, but there are tendencies, changing over time no doubt.

    Here establishing evidence for my 'morning person' tendencies in NZST time zone - I was up past my normal bed-time, having watched All Quiet on the Western Front (1930) for first time.

    Gisborne • Since Apr 2009 • 851 posts Report

  • Hard News: What to Do?,

    Sorry for clumsy writing, I'm a morning person. And I'm not meaning these to have any direct relation to that multi-dimensional concept of ethnicity, just focusing on the language as she is spoke.

    Gisborne • Since Apr 2009 • 851 posts Report

  • Hard News: What to Do?,

    I've heard 'tauiwi' in the spoken language many times in non-academic non-Auckland settings - in this broadly East Coast region - to include all others, including recent immigrants, and we have a longstanding "Chinese" mayor (Meng Foon) of the Gisborne District, born here, who is not Pakeha but might be referred to as tauiwi in some contexts though since he's pretty fluent in te reo (and I don't mean te reo Pakeha) he gets a special category in other contexts.

    The contradiction?

    Gisborne • Since Apr 2009 • 851 posts Report

  • Hard News: What to Do?,

    I would say in modern usage there's a much stronger case for tauiwi referring to all/any people other than Maori (so of foreign origin from a Maori perspective, and as such probably excluding PIs in many contexts. While Pakeha is more specifically of European descent and generally but not essentially British/Irish descent or with English as mother tongue ("te reo Pakeha" is a common expression) with additional connotations of some familiarity and standing here if not several generations-worth.

    That it is now customary to capitalise Pakeha, but not tauiwi is evidence in favour - cf European or British on the one hand, cf foreigner.

    Gisborne • Since Apr 2009 • 851 posts Report

  • Island Life: Driving around Mt Eden,…,

    Thanks Steven for the windjammers, the first Cape Horn/Alan Villiers one especially. What a voice, and what if there're a few casualties, arrr arrrr.
    But as an alternative to containerised prisons? Seems more like suggestion to gummint of boat camps as alternative to boot camps really. Could almost even make sense?
    My grandfather, apparently to to get him away from a spot of bother, was sent to sea as a teenage apprentice in such a ship. Did several trips via Cape of Good Hope, Britain to Calcutta and back, before the ship itself became a casualty. Some old-fashioned types might consider he became a good citizen. So the troublesome youth of today - send them around Cape Horn and straight ahead around the Southern Ocean, by the time they're back in NZ the miracle of correction has happened?

    Gisborne • Since Apr 2009 • 851 posts Report

  • Island Life: Driving around Mt Eden,…,

    @I/S

    ... prisoners onto trains.
    But they closed the Gisborne line years ago, and there's no prisoners on the West Coast, so they couldn't be sent east.

    This line clearly going nowhere, but for the record the Gisborne railway line is no more closed than the north-bound lanes of the Auckland Harbour Bridge are, though granted the traffic counts are lower.

    Gisborne • Since Apr 2009 • 851 posts Report

  • Hard News: What to Do?,

    Given the rhetoric, anything less than 75% No will be a Fail (n) for the perpetrators. And the stated views of Key and Goff and security of the current law for another few years mean that sending a message on stupidity of the wording doesn't seem so necessary. So a Yes vote does seem the way to go.

    Personally, I found the 'parental correction' quirk and the absence of 'child' in the wording to be helpful. My elderly mother can be rather irritating and makes a lot of errors especially when her hearing aids aren't on, but if I were to correct her with a smack ?Agreed that is and should be a criminal offence, even if one unlikely to be prosecuted. So Yes. Easy

    Gisborne • Since Apr 2009 • 851 posts Report

  • Hard News: On the Waterfront,

    I was very close to posting r.i.c.h.a.r.d. in reply, but that would be too close to quasi-paralipsis.

    Gisborne • Since Apr 2009 • 851 posts Report

  • Hard News: On the Waterfront,

    @Rich of Observationz:

    In other news, they're going to build a motorway through Taupiri mountain. Who could possibly object?

    @ChrisW: I was being facietious. I don't believe that even Rodney Hide would dig a cut & cover (we'll put the bodies back after) trench through there.
    They're going round the back

    I could detect the two facies of the second sentence, but not the first, nor apparently did others here with an interest in the subject so far from Auckland. So not an enriching observation, and the motivation obscure.

    Gisborne • Since Apr 2009 • 851 posts Report

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