2021: Radio Hauraki Gets Woke
February 15, 2022
By AHNZ
Around about the turn of the year 2021, I noticed Radio Hauraki had started saying ‘Hauraki’ funny. Instead of ‘How-racky’ they’ve started saying ‘Hoe-raki.’
The new way is apparently what academic Māori SJW types, and State school teachers, want it to be. Their argument is that it’s the *proper* way to speak and if you don’t you’re “racist.”
The libertarian point of view is that there are lots of ways of saying things. Colloquial, Anglo Saxon, English, speech is just as legitimate as the one cooked up in university laboratories and propagandised through our government and media. It’s also more authentic. Saying Hauraki as ‘Haw-racky’ is the way Kiwis speak or at least it was before the Government re-training camps got to them. It’s also the way Billy T James said the station’s name when he hosted; Isn’t he Maori enough for you?
“Why not change the wilfully ignorant (if not outright racist) pronunciation of the brand name?…But I really need this job. I’ve just arrived back in New Zealand, and I have Grey Lynn rent to pay…I continued to do my job – I had Grey Lynn rent to pay. Those of us working in corporate environments make a lot of decisions based on things like having Grey Lynn rent to pay…Not conforming, it seems, doesn’t pay the Grey Lynn rent.” – ex-Hauraki DJ Alex Behan explains how he sold out his morals for money in 2016
It’s actually a bit weird saying ‘Hoe-raki’. The modern prescribed way to pronounce the name in Maori would be ‘Ha-oo-ra-key’. Pronounce every vowel and roll them together. Radio Hauraki aren’t doing that. It seems like they’re more interested in the Politically Correct effects rather than being correct.
And, let’s not pretend any of these ways are the real Maori way of speaking anyway. Abandoning New Zealand English on a sacrificial alter to made-up-Maori doesn’t bring back the dead. In the 1850s the way ‘Hauraki’ was written and said had an S, as in ‘Shouraki Gulf’ which is much closer to the NZ English currently under attack.
‘Shouraki’, ‘How-racky’, ‘Ha-oo-ra-key’, ‘Hoe-raki’….what’s it going to be next? New Shanghai.
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Note: In early 2022 I listened to Auckland radio for the first time in months and was also surprised to hear a long-standing advertisement for Waitemata Backcare had also re-branded. No longer ‘Wai-te-mata’ in Kiwi colloquial, they are now ‘Wai-ta-mar-tar’.
Note: Initially this post was my Facebook Share of the ‘Pronounce Radio Haurani Properly’ Facebook page. They exited the scene the same day taking their shared picture away with them. Didn’t like being shared now the battle is over?
Note: We need to stop expecting brands (or politicians) to fix our culture or our philosophy. They’re just mirrors: They reflect back at us what we say we accept and change when that changes. No one should look to a corporate brand for moral guidance or even moral weakness. They are amoral egregores.
Ref. 1966: Radio Hauraki
Ref. 2010s: New Zealand English Endangered?
Note: Alex Behan’s Spinoff article can be interpreted as as part of his job interview process for his next job which was at the government’s hyper-woke Radio New Zealand. As with the likes of Dan Reddiex and Ayesha Verrall, and Chester Borrows it seems another proving case. Behan in that case was indeed hamming up his public persona to please some behind-the-scenes board by knifing his previous behind-the-scenes board in the back. It was a performance. He got the job at RNZ and then they gave him the can within 2 years and now he’s stuck writing SJW entertainment news for Stuff. Moral of story: If you sell out then at least get a good price for it.
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