Some New Zealanders go to their bach during the holidays,
others to their crib.
It all depends on your age and where you're from, according
to a researcher who looked at which words New Zealanders
preferred.
And if a child gets caught skipping school, their parents are
going to tell them off for "wagging" but the teenagers would
say they got in trouble for "bunking".
University of Canterbury lecturer Dr Kevin Watson said
"wagging" is in the lead until the 19-30 age group, where
there's a crossover and "bunking" takes over.
"This might mean that 'bunking' is finally 'winning', but
more data is needed to test this properly," Dr Watson said in
a blog post.
The linguistics lecturer analysed a Facebook survey of 1000
people aged from 16 to over 70 on commonly used Kiwi words
and how different age groups use different words.
The survey was a follow-up to a study carried out in 1999,
when paper questionnaires were sent to Year 11 and 12
students across New Zealand.
Dr Watson said he wanted to understand more about words that
are distinctly Kiwi and to see how they have changed.
He and his research team, including first-year linguistics
students, found most people referred to holiday homes as
baches.
"The word bach has been around as long as many people can
remember," he said. "Most of the participants in the survey,
from teens to their 70s, used this Kiwi word ..."
However, opinions vary on the word's spelling - "bach" is the
most common, but some prefer "batch".
"Some respondents wrote that they got very annoyed about the
different spellings, because they believed the way they
spelled the word was the correct way and everyone else was
wrong," Dr Watson said.
"Crib" was another holiday home contender, but this was much
more common if you were from Invercargill or Dunedin. And
while the popular fried potato snack is most commonly known
as "chips", you're far more likely to call them "potato
chips" or "crisps" if you're aged 61 to 70.
"It is possible that 'chips' has been competing with
'chippies' and also 'potato chips', but has ultimately won
the battle in the speech of our younger speakers," Dr Watson
said.
He found another variation in age groups' preferences.
"For the place you go to watch a film, some people 40 and
over said they go to the 'pictures'. But younger people said
they went to the 'movies', and this accounted for 80 per cent
of the responses for people aged 30 or younger."
Dr Watson said "movies" might look like an Americanism, but
some respondents made a distinction between a movie as a
thing to watch and the cinema as the place, "so it may be
that cinema will be around for a while yet".
Survey questions
Q: Do you have another name for a holiday home?
Winner: Bach
Q: What is the name of the snack, made from slices of potato,
which comes in a bag or packet?
Winner: Chips
Q: If you missed school without permission, for example to go
to the park or into town, what word would you use to describe
it?
Winner: Close call between wagging and bunking.
A name, residential address, and (preferably residential) telephone number is required from readers who comment on ODT Online. These details will not be visible to site visitors.