Lizzie Marvelly takes a big stick to most of us in her latest narrative over our poor pronunciation of Maori place names (Rotorua Daily Post, May 6).
She is clearly passionate about this and I can understand how she feels. Language is precious to those who own it and manyhave fought hard to make sure that their own tongue is not lost to future generations.
However, for me, our anglicised versions of Maori names are nowhere near as offensive as the outright butchery of the English language made by many who were born and bred in New Zealand, especially our youth.
If I mispronounce 'Toe Paw', I apologise, but doing so probably won't affect my job prospects. However, a future employer may think twice about employing someone who ''aks'' for a job. Of course, the two aren't mutually exclusive; we could all try harder, but please, let's concentrate on getting our local youth speaking English correctly first, because it's their futures at stake.
We are judged in the first instance largely on how we present ourselves with our use of language being a very large part of that, and like it or not 99 per cent of the time that language will be English.
I was interested in the remarks by Minister Flavell on Rotorua becoming a bilingual city (Rotorua Daily Post, May 8).
May I suggest he starts with the makers of the GPS systems in cars. These are very widely used by Kiwis and visitors and yet the pronunciation of our Maori street names is deplorable.
