Poor Dave Withrow's radio insists on speaking te reo Māori to him. Won't someone please think of the aging fisherman?
Pity the fate of the older man, whose once certain world gets turned upside down. Such a one is Dave Witherow, who described in a column in the Otago Daily Times the anguish he feels every time he listens to Radio New Zealand and hears as much as an entire sentence being spoken in te reo Māori.
Not only this, but for one whole week a year – one in fifty-two! – he must suffer things like hearing people with Māori names suggest that constant mispronunciation demonstrates a certain lack of respect towards them and their forebears.
Why, oh why, can’t such people just be made of sterner stuff, like Duffy Witteron himself?
For Daffy Wutherspoon knows how things should be. This is New Zealand, and in New Zealand we only speak the language of a place 18,000 kilometers away. Anything else is just PC nonsense foisted on us by political meddling.
What’s that you say? People were speaking te reo Māori for some hundreds of years before English was ever heard on these shores? And it actually has been an official language of New Zealand alongside English since 1987?
Well, a sensible and clear-thinking man like Dippy Withnocow is not interested in mere fripperies like history or the law. What matters is what people do now. And no one wants to hear nonsense like te reo Māori spoken on their radios.
You can just tell from the voices of Radio New Zealand’s poor staff, forced by their political overlords to speak such mumbo-jumbo through gritted teeth.
Oh, sure, Guyon Espiner may have written on The Spinoff that “I wanted to do more [te reo Māori] and began to extend the greetings and include basic information in Māori – such as the days, dates and temperatures for the main centres.” But who are you going to believe: Guyon Espiner or Domby Wiltersnipe?
And you can tell how upset ordinary New Zealander’s are at Radio New Zealand by its listenership figures. People must be turning off having to listen to that te reo Māori nonsense in droves!
What’s that you say? More people than ever are listening to Radio New Zealand, while its share of the radio market is increasing?
And Morning Report, with its entire sentences spoken in te reo Māori, is leading the charge, attracting an additional 100,000 listeners over the last 18 months?
It’s almost as if a lot of people actually don’t think like Dicky Warbartoon and instead really like hearing two languages woven together, appreciating the opportunity to learn something more about the place in which they live. It’s just too bad that an old dog like Dusty Wilberforce apparently isn’t interested in learning new tricks anymore.