Munted

Munted has been around for 20 years or more but was popularised after a massive earthquake struck Christchurch in Feb 2011.  The city's mayor at the time, Bob Parker, is now widely credited as the word's creator after telling television reporters: "Our main sewer trunk is seriously munted.  I believe that is the technical term."  Understatement of the year!

You'd refer to something as munted if you believed it was broken, destroyed or faulty and you didn't want to drop an f-bomb inappropriately.

The earthquake was R6.3 and the epicentre was shallow and directly under Christchurch on a fault that nobody knew existed prior to that point.  It was so strong that I felt it 450km (280 miles) away.  It was a very sad day for NZ as Christchurch was our second largest city, the largest on the South Island.  Nearly 200 people were killed.  This photo shows the dust from collapsed buildings rising from the city just moments after the quake struck.

Sucked the big kumara

No, no, no. A kumara is not what you're thinking. This is a kumara.   OK, maybe it looks a little like what you were thinking but this explains the phrase. It means that something didn't go quite as expected, with disappointing consequences. For example, Pox's internet fails just before killing the boss in Molten Core. It took him a couple of hours of dungeon crawling to get to that point and now he has missed out on the drop he went in there to get. It would be entirely appropriate for him to declare in guildchat: "MC sucked the big kumara!"

A kumara is also known as a Māori potato or sweet potato and has a rich honey-like flavour to it.  Nowadays we eat them in much the same way as the common or garden potato - roasted, boiled, mashed etc. My personal favourite is kumara chips with a little garlic aoli on the side. You have to try them if you ever come here. Yum! Way better than poutine!

Kumara was traditionally cooked in a hāngi, which is a kind of barbecue: a pit of hot stones in the ground, layered with food and then covered to cook. This is a hāngi.

Sucking the big kumara is not to be confused with a similar phrase: suck it and see. This is used when you come across something new that you don't fully understand yet. One would "suck it and see" upon entering a World of Warcraft dungeon for the first time, for example. It means trying something new to see whether you like it.  Try this experiment: cut a lemon in half and stand with it in front of a brass band while they're playing.  Now suck it and see what happens!

Rattle your dags

A dag is what you call the dried poo matted into the wool around a sheep's bum.  When a sheep runs, the dags knock against each other.  So when a Kiwi tells you to "rattle your dags" they are asking you to hurry up.

This is where things get a little complicated.  Calling someone a dag means you think they have great sense of humour.  It is a term of endearment.  My friends in CoM could rightfully claim that Pox is a dag.

Australians mess it all up by using daggy as an insult.  A daggy person means someone unkempt or without fashion sense. 

Not to be confused with Fred Dagg (a comedian from the 1970s) ..

... or Israel Dagg (plays rugby for the All Blacks).  Both these guys have a near god-like status in New Zealand and to shun them here would be folly.








In short, one must have finely honed powers of diplomacy before using the word dag in anger.

Box of fluffies

When somebody asks you how you are, sometimes a Kiwi will reply "A box of fluffies, thanks". This is short for "a box of fluffy ducklings" which are generally thought to be cute, chirpy, full of energy and bloody glad they're not a chicken.  In other words, the Kiwi is telling you they are doing well or feeling good.  This is what fluffy ducklings look like.

Kiwi v Kiwifruit

This is a kiwi.  It is New Zealand's national bird.  It is endangered, nocturnal, flightless, and has nostrils at the end of its beak so it can hunt for grubs in the dark.  This one is just a chick.

This is a kiwifruit.  It is a large fuzzy green berry with green or gold flesh.  Not to be confused with a kiwi (see above).  The kiwifruit is one of NZ's greatest marketing campaigns and also one of its worst.  In the 1970s we convinced the world this was a pretty cool fruit to eat and they believed us.  Unfortunately, we forgot to trademark the name "kiwifruit" soon enough.  If you want genuine NZ kiwifruit you need to look for Zespri brand.

NZ Christmas Tree

New Zealand is in the southern hemisphere.  That means we get hot weather at Christmas time.  This makes the NZ Christmas Tree, the pohutukawa, bloom about a week before Christmas Day.  The tree has dark green foliage and crimson flowers.  Most Kiwis will tell you that when they live overseas, this tree is one of the things they miss about home.  This is a pohutukawa.