How to speak Kiwi

The other day I asked winemaker Kathy Lynskey if she and her significant other, Kent Castro, who is also her business partner, ever had trouble separating business from the relationship and she said, No, they worked pretty well together.

Actually, that’s not what she said at all. What she really said was, “I suppose if we were going to have a major blue, we’d have had it by now.”

A major blue, in the language of Kiwis, is a fight. So I’ve translated her comment into English—they work well together. But the original language is more interesting, no?

Here are some other peculiarities about the language that I’ve noticed:

They don’t call winery tasting rooms “tasting rooms” in this part of New Zealand. They call them “cellar doors.” So that’s what you have to keep an eye out for when you’re driving past.

If you want milk or cream with your coffee, you ask for a “flat white.”

They don’t go to college over here; they go to “uni.”

They call country music “chicken kickin’ music” and they like to say “gobsmacked” a lot.

I rather like that word. In fact, when I heard the uni fella describe the major blue at the chicken kickin’ bar last night, I was just totally gobsmacked.

Really.