Category: language barriers

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A Maritime Storytime Rhyme Crime

When the boys are staying with us, they each choose a book for me to read them before bed. The other night, Kevin (reminder: that’s his Minion name, not his actual name) came running in with this book, telling me to get ready because it was so funny:



We settled in to bed and I began to read. The book starts off with a piranha named Brian offering his friend a banana.

“Hey there, guys, would you like a banana?” he asks.
“What’s wrong with you, Brian?” says his friend. “You’re a piranha.”

Kevin and I halfheartedly chuckled. I turned the page and kept reading. The story, and the illustrations, were very funny, but we weren’t really laughing. Something was off, but I couldn’t quite put my finger on it.

Brian the vegetarian piranha tried again:
“Well how about some silverbeet?”

“Are you serious, Brian? We eat FEET.”

And then it hit me: beet/feet. OH, the book is supposed to rhyme. But with my American accent the joke fell flat, because I pronounce it “buh-nan-nah” ( [bəˈnɛ̃ə̃.nə], for your phonetics geeks) and Kiwis, like the Brits, say “bih-na-na,” ([bəˈnɑː.nɐ]). Although the pretty Kiwi pronunciation of “banana” doesn’t exactly/perfectly/technically rhyme with “piranha,” it’s a hell of a lot closer to rhyming than my aggressive American “BUH-NAN-NAH.” 🍌👎

I shared my revelation with Kevin, who said “OOOOooh,” as in Oh, so that’s why the story isn’t funny when you read it! I cleared my throat and proceeded to try and pronounce “banana” with a Kiwi accent so that the rhyme worked. That experiment went so well that Kevin immediately took the book out of my hands and said “NOOOOO, stop! I’ll read it.”

And he did it perfectly, and the true humor/humour of the book came through. Bih-na-na/pih-ran-ha: a sublime bedtime rhyme paradigm.

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Kiwi 🙎🏼‍♀️ vs. Kiwi 🥝 vs. Kiwi🪺

Note that it says “Kiwifruit,” not “Kiwi.”

When a New Zealander is referring to a “Kiwi,” they mean a fellow New Zealander.

When a Kiwi is referring to a kiwi as in the fruit, they say “kiwifruit.”

When a Kiwi is referring to a kiwi as in the bird, they say “kiwi bird.”

In the United States, we call someone from New Zealand a Kiwi, we call the fruit a kiwi, and we call the bird a kiwi. Just a generic, all-encompassing “kiwi.” It doesn’t matter if we’re talking about a human being, a fruit, or a bird: y’all are kiwis to us.

This explains the slight pause in conversation when I’m taking to a Kiwi and say something like “When’s kiwi season?”, “Where do you get the most delicious kiwis in town?”, or “Have you ever seen a kiwi? I understand they’re nocturnal, so you probably only see them out at night, right?”.

I’ve come to the realization that “kiwifruit” is to “American cheese” as “Kiwi” is to “American.” So it would be like a New Zealander coming to the States and asking “Who serves the best American around here?”, or “I reckon this sandwich would be good with an American melted on top, eh?”.

I am now overcompensating for my cultural missteps by going “Hi, hello, excuse me, are you sold out of kiwiFRUIT, kiwi THE FRUIT? Or was I just not seeing them? ‘Them’ being KIWI the FRUIT?”.

I’m totally nailing this cultural immersion thing. 👍🏼

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I’m sorry, your chutney is delicious on WHAT now………?

While I was doing the dishes the other day, I was admiring the beautiful rose from our garden that we’d put in an empty jar of Barker’s sundried tomato and olive chutney.

So pretty.

As I was rinsing off the plates, I idly read the label, which gave suggested uses for their (by the way, delicious) chutney.

These all sound so good, right?

Mix with cream for a pasta sauce: yum! Blend with olive oil for a salad dressing: brilliant! Use on an antipasto platter: great idea! Excellent base for pizza (yassss!) as well as an excellent base for…………..

HOLD UP.

MOUSETRAPS?! They’re actually suggesting–on the label, no less–that their excellent chutney is perfect to use on a mouse trap? That’s just about the most unappetizing suggestion I could possibly think of. My dream of using it as the base for a pizza immediately went out the kitchen window.

I took the jar over to Stu so that he, too, could experience the horror that was the marketing fail of the Barker’s chutney company.

I did not get the reaction I was expecting. There was a brief pause while he tried to figure out why the idea of using chutney on a mouse trap was so disgusting, and then went “Oh! Do you not have mousetrap sandwiches in the States?”.

No; no we do not.*

According to Google, “mousetraps” were originally a British thing but have since been mostly commandeered by Kiwis. To make a traditional mousetrap, you take two slices of sourdough bread and lather them up with Vegemite, butter, and cheddar cheese and then grill or press it. It’s like a grilled cheese gone horrible awry.

Things like this happen constantly in my new New Zealand life. Just this morning, I told Stu I was going to lie out in the sun in the back yard this afternoon and he said “You should use the squabs off the porch!”

Squabs………squabs…….you can figure this out, Hilary.

I did not figure it out.

Squabs are cushions used to give a softer feel to chairs, usually outdoor ones like patio furniture.

And mousetraps are dubious-sounding sandwiches which, according to Barker’s, are very tasty with their sundried tomato and olive chutney.

Me trying to figure out what “squabs” were.



*Let me amend this: when I say “We do not have mousetrap sandwiches in the States,” what I’m really saying is “I, personally, as someone who grew up in Massachusetts, have never heard of a mousetrap sandwich.” Whenever someone here asks if we have ______ in the States, I always, every single time, say “Well, *I’ve* never heard of it, but that doesn’t mean we don’t have it.” Because the United States is huge and kinda feels like it’s a bunch of different countries under one name. So I do realize I may get a few comments saying that someone grew up in Kansas and that mousetrap sandwiches are a staple of the American Midwest. When asked a question about the U.S., I always clarify that I am not speaking for all of us.