Thursday, July 28, 2011

Last minute uzi-bloging: more Kiwinglish

NAFF, CHUFFED AND WOP-WOPS

"I was really chuffed when I heard what she had said about me." I had a hard time figuring this out at first, because "chuff" sounds like chafe or something annoying. Actually it means pleased or delighted. (Origin: British dialect, chuff, pleased.)

"That docu-drama about Prince William and Kate Middleton was really naff." Cheesy, corny, worthless. (Origin unknown, 20th C)

There was an article in the paper about "Op Shops in the Wop-Wops," telling about great second-hand or thrift shops in out-of-the-way places. Op shops are opportunity shops -- thrift or second-hand stores (Interesting origin of the word opportunity -- from the Latin, suggesting a wind driving a sailing ship into the harbor). Op shows that NZ way of shortening every word possible. Wop-wops is a purely NZ colloquial, unknown origin, meaning a remote or rural area. As in, "They lived way out in the wop-wops."

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