Kōrero: Linguistics

Harry Orsman edited the Dictionary of New Zealand English (1997), which recorded exclusively New Zealand words. This award-winning work was a product of over 40 years of research into New Zealand English. Listen to Orsman talk to radio journalist Brian Edwards about the New Zealand use of the word 'bach'.

Transcript

Interviewer: Well, I mean there's some obvious New Zealand words, Aotearoa obviously we think of things like batch. I take it that's an exclusive word of New Zealand in that meaning at least. Buzzy Bee, these sorts of words, these would be quite obviously New Zealand words.

They would be, 'batch' the noun is an obvious New Zealand word, 'batch' the verb is not of course. It's used in North America.

Interviewer: To mean what?

To mean to batch to live as a bachelor really to live without female help in many ways or with.

Interviewer: Well, how come the noun can be a New Zealand exclusive New Zealand word but the verb not? That's curious.

It is curious and that's the sort of question Brian that it's almost impossible to impossible to answer in many ways but the thing is that the verb in New Zealand developed probably, the verb overseas in North America probably developed from the word bachelor. In New Zealand I think it developed from an earlier verb to bachelorise which was used at least from 1879 and a bachelorise was used in the same way as we used the batch the verb now now, you know, I was batching with a couple of mates at..