Sunday, 30 October 2011

More New Zealand Vocabulary

I am increasingly finding that many words are 'cutie-fied' in New Zealand.  What does that mean?  Simply take a word, concatenate it, and add a y (or ie)

Examples:

Sunnies ==> sunglasses
Kindy ==> Kindergarten
Nappies ==> okay, this one is a bit different.  Nappies is another word for diapers

Short story:

During one of our weekend trips, we were looking for something to do in town.  I went to the information centre (known as the i-site, in various New Zealand cities) to get some ideas.  The nice lady behind the counter looked through a book of local events, and informed me that there was a Kindy Gala going on during one of the weekend days.  Okay great...but what's Kindy mean, is what I thought to myself.  So I asked.  She told me it's short for Kindergarten, which is the german word for a class of preschoolers.   The kindergarten part I knew, of course.  We use the same term in Canada.  The kindy part of it, I did not.  I have never heard of kindergarten referred to as kindy.  I have however, heard of kindergarteners referred to as kindies.

btw, this word 'kindy' was used in a newspaper article to promote the event.  It's not just a spoken word in New Zealand, it gets recorded in formal print work as well!

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