You Plonks

[Sanityisoverrated]

I ordered a long white cloud at starbucks today, and the waitress slapped me.

[Peter]

It's the land of the long white cloud.

 

Do you mean THIS long white cloud??

Translation

The original derivation of Aotearoa is not known for certain. Ao = cloud, tea = white and roa = long, and it is accordingly most often translated as "The land of the long white cloud". According to oral tradition, the daughter of explorer Kupe saw white on the horizon and called "He ao! He ao!" ("a cloud! a cloud!"). The first land sighted was accordingly named Aotea (White Cloud) and is now commonly known as Great Barrier Island. When a much larger landmass was found beyond Aotea, it was called Aotea-roa (Long Aotea). Thus Aotearoa is a traditional name only of the North Island, though it now commonly refers to the whole country.

[edit] Popular explanations

There are several explanations of the origin of the word Aotearoa, of varying plausibility:

    * One explanation derives the name from seafaring. The first sign of land from a boat is often cloud in the sky above the island. New Zealand's mountain ranges are longer and higher than elsewhere in the South Pacific and so they are particularly good at generating standing waves. The resulting long lenticular clouds are very different from the more usual cumulus clouds seen elsewhere in the region. The sight of these clouds over either of the country's two main islands could easily have led to this name.

    * A second explanation relates to the snow-capped nature of New Zealand's mountains, notably the long chain of the Southern Alps which forms a backbone to the South Island, but also the North Island Volcanic Plateau. Polynesian travellers, unused to snow, might well have seen these snowy peaks as a long white cloud.

    * A third explanation is connected with New Zealand's location below the tropics. Polynesian seafarers would have been used to tropical sunsets, in which the sky goes from daylight to night very rapidly, with little twilight. New Zealand, with its more southerly latitudes, would have provided surprisingly long periods of evening twilight to travellers from the tropics, and also surprisingly long summer days. It has been suggested that this long twilight is the actual origin of the term Aotearoa, which therefore would better translate as "long light sky". The presence of the Aurora Australis, and the vivid sunsets, are given as theories for the origin of part of the name for Stewart Island/Rakiura, namely Rakiura meaning "glowing sky".

["couldbecousin"]

  Brit-type insults are fab.  I want to start calling people plonks. 

   I want to call someone a gormless numpty gobshite and tell them to sod off. 

[Fun With Matches]

Common words around here are twat, tit, tool, cunt, dick, arsehole. Nobody really uses the word plonker anymore, unless to a child. There is numbnut though: "You numbnut". There's also dipshit. Yes, gobshite is used.

[odeon]

Always liked Dunc's "twunt".

[DirtDawg]

Always liked Dunc's "twunt".

I used that a few days ago at work (in good humored jest) and no one knew what I was talking about. 

I said, "Think about it, c'wat!"

["couldbecousin"]

  I watched Zorba The Greek on TV the other day, didn't care for it.
   It was just some numpties pissing about on the island of Crete, fucking things up. 

["couldbecousin"]

  Some of you wankers need to post more. 

[Queen Victoria]

I get startled reactions when I say

Bless my paws and whiskers

Fiddlesticks

Gosh, darn it

["couldbecousin"]

I get startled reactions when I say

Bless my paws and whiskers

Fiddlesticks

Gosh, darn it

  My mother really got my attention the day she ranted about the "Shitite" Muslims.
  That was not a mistake, but a rare use of profanity, probably the only time I ever
  heard her swear beyond "damn" and "hell."  My father, on the other hand,
  would say "goddammit" and "asshole."    Goddamn right!

[DirtDawg]

BY the time I was barely reading I knew how to spell every curse word my mother knew.  For some reason she would EXCLAIM things like "SHIT!"  about usually what ever huge mess I or my brother or both of us together had just made.

But then she would do it all again, spelling it out.  "SHIT  S_H_I_T !!   Shit SHIT shit!!"

I do not know what that was  but I have to think that at such an early age it HAD to help me learn to spell something.
 

[odeon]

It's really important in those early days to teach your child new things.

[Queen Victoria]

It's really important in those early days to teach your child new things.

Reminds me of The PR's response to,

"Eleanor, behave!" 
"But Momma, I've been haveing."  (long a sound in the haveing)

[Lestat]

There's always there being 'have been, badly'

And for english insults, theres always 'pillock' 'wanker' 'tosser' 'bell-end' 'arsehole' (yanks don't spell it right, its 'arse hole' not 'ass hole'

Or 'chocolate starfish' as a reference to the above. Turdburglar. Nonce (rather severely offensive, its a prison term for paedophile and plenty people would kick your head in for such an accusation) Twat, twunt, toss pot, fuckweasel, arsebandit, 'spacker' (english take on 'spastic', offensive as it gets to spesh people, and used by neurotypical people it'll result in the application of severe maiming and pain if ever heard spoken by yours truly.) Sarcastic humor by spesh people I'll just about tolerate. But used as an invective, its about as offensive as you can get.

 And a few of my own,

'gutterfuck' 'whorebegotten' 'perdition-spawned whoreson' 'mitotic catastrophe' 'a turd no anus would willingly shit' 'fuckweasel' 'disease made flesh' 'cockmongrel'

[Queen Victoria]

In one of the BBC series set in Anglo Saxon times, the lead character was referred to as "Arseling" by his companion/mentor.