Month: February 2024

           

  Every culture has its way of saying things and  New Zealand is no different.  Many of their idioms or word choices come directly from British English.  Some of it is original to New Zealand.  Some of it is puzzling.  

            Our favorite is “sweet as.”  They do not ever finish this thought.  They just say with clear delight, “sweet as…!” I would define this as meaning “awesome” or “cool.”

            How about being greeted with “How are you going?”  This appears to be some mish mash of two of our sayings: “How are you doing?” and “How is it going?”  I understand that Canadians also say this so perhaps this is British English. Whatever it is, it makes my head hurt.

            When something needs to be or has been solved or figured out, they say “let’s get that sorted” or “now that we have that sorted.” This word is used a lot. It seems to be used as a replacement for “solved,” fixed,” and “taken care of” among others. This, too, is British English.

To say hello, they use the Maori greeting “Kia Ora,” which means “have life” or “be healthy.” It is pronounced as the two sliding into one word “Kyee-ora.”

Sometimes, where we might say “thank you,” they say “lovely.” For example, they ask, what is your address? After I give the information, their answer is “Lovely.” I am never clear if the information I have given is lovely or if they are affirming my loveliness for giving them the information.

            “Hi” is “Hiya” here.  It is often pronounced with a bit of a trill, song-like.

Laugh if you will but I have decided to learn to play croquet. I saw an ad in the local paper where a croquet club was having a “Have a Go” Day. I never played croquet in my life except for the back yard game we played as kids. But I thought, what the hell?

I quickly learned that croquet is a vicious game. And I love that. Imagine if, as part of the game of golf, the other players could knock your ball away from the hole, in fact, clean off the putting green, before you have the opportunity to putt it in. That is croquet in a nutshell. The goal is to get your ball through the hoop before the other side and along the way your job is to make them miserable by knocking their ball as far from the hoop as possible. You are preventing them from scoring while they are preventing you from scoring. There is so much strategy involved and yet, no matter how you decide to proceed, you still have to make the shot. In that sense it is somewhat like curling or perhaps playing pool. You can have a plan but you still have to make it work. As a pool player, understanding the angles helps a lot but getting the right amount of weight on the ball and controlling the direction will take years to master.

I am playing what is called Golf Croquet. This is more for socializing and fun. We have partners, with four players in a game. We chat and laugh and have fun. The serious minded play something called Association Croquet, which I understand has very little socializing. It is just a player and his mallet. I am not in this to become a pro. I am just trying to have some fun so I will stick with Golf Croquet.

I am the youngest play in this group by far. Only retired folks can play croquet in the middle of the day. But no matter their age, they are way better than I am. What is really nice is that even though it is a vicious game, everyone is quite polite about it. Everyone, even opponents, helps me figure out the game and gives me advice on how to hit the ball. New Zealanders are polite as it is and playing this game just emphasizes it. I get a lot of “well played,” and “very nice shot” if I make a good shot, as well as “hard luck” when I miss. At the end, we shake hands and go on to the next round.

I am told I am pretty good given how little I have played. I think I am more lucky than anything. Still, hopefully in a year or so, I will have improved enough to actually know what I am doing.

Matt and I both came down with COVID about a week into January and the month disappeared with nothing to do until the very end. We had recovered and w e had tickets to see the Foo Fighters on January 27. They came to Wellington! Oh, the excitement!

Wellington has problems getting music acts to play here for two reasons. It is a small city and there is an enthusiasm problem and there is no mid-size venue. You get 5000 seats or you get a stadium. Limited places to play mean limited acts.

But Dave came. He did not fill the stadium, but it was a pretty good crowd. I got to jump around and head bang. Thanks Dave!

And yes, a concert in New Zealand is like a concert anywhere. People dance, people drink too much, people howl.