I awoke to abnormal sunshine and fine weather in the city of Wellington. The bad weather just makes you savour the nice ones so much more.
The National Party has been put under pressure to start revealing policies due to a Fairfax/Neilson poll which says 55% of people want to see them now, opposed to 35% who “could wait”. I’d personally like to see them now, I think it would give me a lot more time to absorb them and make a fair and balanced decision.
So apparently the myth that women talk more than men has been dispelled as both say 16000 words per day according to a new study. Interesting. I wonder if men or women write more? Or blog more?
It’s the beginning of Maori language week today, I saw a poll on stuff where the vast majority of people when asked “Will you be making an effort to speak Maori during Maori Language Week?” said “No I couldn’t be bothered.” What’s up with that? I thought most kiwis were pretty good about Maori words and pronunciation, but maybe not. There was an article in the Dompo about some kids from Tawa College selling instructional CD’s on Maori pronunciation, but it all comes down to effort.
Most people know what the correct pronunciation sounds like but might feel like they shouldn’t say it, or it sounds funny, or whatever reasons. The truth is people will probably respect you a lot more for saying it properly.
I was on a bus back from seeing my family in Napier recently and the driver asked a white kid sitting in front of me where he wanted to be let off. He hesitantly attempted the correct “Porirua”. The driver said “what?” and the kid repeated a few more times, nervously as he must have been aware everyone on the bus could hear him. “Porirua” he finally got it dead right (although I understood him the first time) and the driver said “ohhh Po-ree-roo-ah”. That was probably the most interesting part of the bus trip.
Well, time to go enjoy some sun and get out of my blogger’s den.
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