I guess they didn’t want people to end up calling it P Road
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.
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, 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.
If I can say shmutzfangmatten then I can say Papakangahorohoro. I bet half the people complaining wouldn’t be if they were trying to name it for a (hypothetical) historical German doormat factory instead of giving it a perfectly cromulent Maori name (I think something to do with earthquakes?).
I definitely couldn’t pronounce shmutzfangmatten though, and I doubt most of NZ could either. I also think there would be a similar push back if you tried to name a street that.
Kinda a ridiculous hypothetical to be honest.
Yeah, it is much easier when you read it and then say what you read.
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
I’d wager a very big chunk of the population would misspell it though.
with the eye’s on it in the media and people like you getting upset over it - I doubt it, unless you/they are deliberately being obtuse
That is a spectacularly out of touch comment to be honest, not everyone spends hours reading the news and arguing about it with strangers on the Internet, you know.
oh my god - just give up. Its not that hard a name to spell when we have places like Foveaux Strait, Balmacewen, Corstorphine just to name a few non Te Reo name that are ‘hard to spell’ or are a ‘mouthful’
Those are also a mouthful, and are probably a hassle for the people that live there. I don’t see how that makes creating a headache for these people acceptable?
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.
Cool, is this in NZ?
Probably not, unless you like to name your streets in German.
The siblings Scholl were part of the White Rose resistance group in WW2 and were decapitated (aged 21 and 24) for spreading anti war propaganda.
Not really relevant to a discussion about NZ street names then, is it?
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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“Residents of a new Whakatāne subdivision have rejected the Māori name chosen by local iwi Ngāti Awa, calling it impractical and too long.”
“Under the council’s Road Naming and Property Addressing Policy, the subdivision developer has the responsibility to suggest appropriate names for roads, but consultation with relevant iwi is required.”
“In a meeting on August 18, council put forward the motion for approval of the road name “Papakangahorohoro Road”. Council staff wanted to proceed given the area had “huge cultural significance” to Ngati Awa. The motion was supported by mayor Victor Luca.”
Please read the article.
PS I have ad an address of lot xxx/yyy, suburb. before a ‘proper’ address was gazetted.
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)
Isn’t it almost always referred to as K road though?
Not really, there’s been a push for people to use its full name and last time I was in Auckland everyone I spoke to did.
The fact that people need a “push” to not shorten the name doesn’t help your argument much.
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.
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.
Or something like Whangaparaoa road clutches pearls.
Also eyjafjallajökull is just fine if you’re Icelandic.
Ditto every street name in Wales.
Papakangahorohoro (from memory thank you very much) is easy.
Ditto every street name in Wales.
You should come to Aberdare, most of our street names are simple English words 🙈
Aberdare
I admit I was making a poorly informed guess about street names in Wales.
Wales came to mind as NZ’s currently rolling out bi-lingual road signs. Wales is held up as a model of successful deployment. A certain demographic are unhappy about this.
It’s all good. It just made me laugh when I was reading your post, surrounded by streets with names like Brook Street, George Street, Market Street, Wind Street, and Hill Street :D
Oh, and ignore the whiners. Our national park just changed its name from The Brecon Beacons to Bannau Brecheiniog, and I had an English woman telling me that it was discriminatory to a Welsh man she knows who can’t speak Welsh…
I mean, you’d get the same reaction if you tried to name a street “eyjafjallajökull St”, possibly even more so.
It’s certainly possible to learn, but would you really want to be constantly spelling it out?
You may have typed this message out 50x, but I still don’t believe you actually think this.
Believe what you want.
Not quite how belief works, bruh.
Feel free to believe that.
Believe what? You blocked me so I can’t see the context.
I’ve done no such thing, what are you on about?
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What are those atrocities actually in use as street names somewhere around NZ?
How many of those are street names in NZ?
Papa road
take me home
There are tons of roads in the bay of plenty which are harder to spell and pronounce.
It’s not the actuall name they have a problem with…
Exactly.
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Yeah, it’s totally not the length they’re upset about.
Yeah, it’s the fact it’s a nightmare to say or spell.
It’s not exactly “rødgrød med fløde”. Dr. Seuss put harder-to-say things in books for children.
Do we put this thread in the museum? Our first proper instance conflict.
It’s a shame we don’t have user flairs, I want to make mine “I got Hexbear defederated”.
sounds like the crackers should go back to europe if they dont like it
“too long” fuck off street names over 15-letters are the norm where i live
No one gives a fuck about where you live.
Why not though? Do you not participate on the global markets?
Having long street names in another country is irrelevant because this is an nz community. No one is going to say oh I guess they named a street flebeflabflopper in Denmark so that makes these peoples complaints null and void.
There’s plenty of maori street names so that’s not the issue here.
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Get over it crakkkas
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? The Māori were the first humans to NZ, they displaced giant birds and shit not other people.
༼ つ ◕_◕ ༽つ
Normally you lose naming privileges when you get succesfully invaded,
I guess not.
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die, fascist.
What a farken mouthful, bugger trying to say that when you need to call an ambulance.
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Also like let’s be real, people are gonna either come up with a snappier name or just keep using the old one
Fuck off, Hexbear troll.
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You assholes constantly show up where you’re not wanted, post the most inflammatory takes possible, accuse everyone who disagrees with you of racism, and generally engage in bad faith.
Take the hint and fuck off.
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That is a bad faith argument when you need to learn it in order to call for help. Kinda leaving out some details.
Besides, you fuckers just absolutely flood every thread you show up in.
Please look up the definition of what arguing in bad faith is about.
Lawyers will argue this shit for days, please don’t start fights for no reason.
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Why are you incapable of learning it though? Is there something special about you?
when you need to learn it in order to call for help.
Is that the purpose of street names? Don’t think so
You’re getting yourself worked up over Papakangahorohoro Road. Take a chill pill!
Papakangahorohoro doesn’t even look or sound hard. If you want hard, try wrapping your head around figuring out how to pronounce Welsh - Who are the real British people, and not those savage Germans calling themselves “English” -
For example, imagine your touring the village of Llanhyfryddawelllehynafolybarcudprindanfygythiadtrienusyrhafnauole and decided you wanted to catch a train to Liverpool but on your way there you accidentally take the wrong train and end up in Fairbourne at Gorsafawddachaidraigodanheddogleddollonpenrhynareurdraethceredigion rail station. Makes for a great photo opportunity at least.
Dude got mad when someone asked if he saw mary poppins. You can’t make this shit up
Even somebody like you could manage I bet.
