The name – meaning “to move swiftly in battle formation like the crab”
We can’t have anything cool in this country. We need more street names like this! I for one would be proud to live on the battle crab street.
this post was submitted on 26 Aug 2023
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What percentage of NZ could actually pronounce it though? It's an absolute mouthful.
Papa-kanga-horo-horo. Eight syllables, pretty straightforward. My Māori is pretty trash, but after one read of it and a handful of times saying it out loud it's pretty simple.
My advice to anyone complaining about it is to just say it out loud a few times. I guarantee that by the time you've said it to the moving company, the power company, the insurance company and your mum, you'll have it locked down.
It also has the added bonus of being completely unique, so there's no chance of your ambulance being dispatched to park terrace on the other side of town while you're choking on park road.
It's definitely a lot easier when you break it up like that.
Yeah, it is much easier when you read it and then say what you read.
Yeah, Māori is actually pretty easy to pronounce if you break it apart. There are only five vowel sounds and they don't change depending on context like with English. The only downside is that names are often comprised of several words smooshed together, so you have to pick it apart yourself the first time you read it.
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I don't know man. It would just take a couple of tries to get it and then get used to it like pretty much anything new?
Honestly I've never cared what the name of the street I lived on was or how long it is.
Eh Māori stuff is generally reasonably easy to pronounce, I'd say that having to constantly type it out would be a far bigger issue!
what? it's three different sounds
Get over yourself, we can al do Ngāruawāhia well enough cant we?
I'm 50 this coming birthday, had little Te Reo at small white town NZ schools, lived in the UK for 1/3 of my adult life, and would have little issue with that as my street address
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It’s a cool name, but I agree its too long for a street. Would make a good name for a park or a reserve or something in the area. To me an ideal street name is around 2 or 3 syllables. “Acacia” is a pretty crap name too though, better to pick something with a connection to the land and the people.
They mention they’re arranging a hui so hopefully a decent compromise can come from that.
Bah, I've been living on "Geschwister-Scholl-Straße" for years and Papakangahorohoro isn't any more complicated really.
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It's a valid point that names for subdivisions can be very unoriginal, the worst is the nautical themed ones, there's just so many.
Tree-named streets everywhere.
Having lived in Gulf Harbour I totally agree
If the people that live there don't want the name then it should be changed. The council consulted the local iwi and got a stupid name about moving in a crab formation, I'm pretty sure we can swap that out for another name without cultural uproar.
well it's a new subdivision that isn't named yet, the local Iwi were consulted and put forth papakangahorohoro as the traditional name for the land
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Can't call it Acacia Avenue because it's not an Avenue? Fine, call it Acacia Lane. Still has a common vowel sound.
My biggest takeaway from the article was the avenues are supposed to be tree lined. I’m pretty sure there are a bunch of them around that don’t adhere to that naming scheme, although it perhaps depends on the definition of tree lined.
That name is easy enough. I think people are over-reacting. Karangahape Road is fine and with English names not a single person in Wellington pronounces Majoribanks Street the same way (in fact, here are five streets in Wellington that are commonly mispronounced, all of which are English: https://wellington.govt.nz/news-and-events/news-and-information/our-wellington/2021/12/friday-five-street-names-mispronounced)
How many of you actually did read the name? It's papakangahorohoro road. That's not toooo hard to remember. I already did. papa-kanga + 2x horo. It's not like it's eyjafjallajökull or something like that.
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There are tons of roads in the bay of plenty which are harder to spell and pronounce.
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Papa road
take me home
Do we put this thread in the museum? Our first proper instance conflict.
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