Eamon Sloan

  Parsing Aotearoa From my Maori dictionary - Ao :: Cloud Tea :: White Roa :: Long Aotearoa is a compound word. In strict Maori grammar the adjective follows the noun. Here there are two adjectives following Cloud, which I suppose satisfies the rule, in manufacturing the word AoTeaRoa. Should the English language name of New Zealand now be changed to CloudWhiteLong or CloudLongWhite? Or would the language bigots and trolls be satisfied with LongWhiteCloud? Where LongWhiteCloud has a distinct North American Indian sound to it. No disrespect to North American Indians. Next time you order a coffee ask for a CloudWhiteLong. Your coffee man might not know what you are on about. Should Aotea Square in Auckland be known as CloudWhiteSquare? Or is it SquareWhiteCloud? Meet me at CloudWhiteSquare. Where is that? Recall the flag debate? A lot of reputations were damaged in John Key’s personal image and vanity project. Did the bigots and trolls then say “If we can’t change t...