Next year at some stage, the people who live here in Wanganui are going to be referendumbed again by the council. One of the issues we are going to be quizzed on is whether the spelling of our little villiage should change to Whanganui.
Its a subject that certainly makes the locals expressive.
Today there were comments at work that perhaps we should go back to the first settlers name of Petre. That struck me as a bit wierd. My understanding is that the Maori were here before any European people.
There was the comment that it was going to cost thousands. But I doubt that, as it wouldn't be enforced by law and there would be no penalty for not changing, so it would just happen gradually, as people ran out of stationary, or when signs were due for replacement anyway.
My understanding from reading various local histories is that it was an honest spelling mistake, possibly caused by the local Maori accent. Petre wasn't working as a name, so the local people petitioned parliament to have the town name returned to the Maori name, but they spelt it Wanganui instead of Whanganui. So what is proposed is that a spelling mistake is corrected.
There are more whites than Maori in town now, and the level of education on this one is pretty low, so it is expected that the present (incorrect) spelling will be retained. It is also expected that this airing of the issue will reverse the slight gains in race relations in town since Motua Gardens. This is the most overtly racist part of NZ I've lived in. The letters to the editor in the local paper are pretty awful at times.
There's a theory that if the issue had been left alone, the locals would have slowly reverted to Whanganui, as there are slowly more places in town using that spelling. And without the disruption and distrust the referendum will produce. But I imagine our mayor thinks he can distract the locals from his other problems, like the Splash Centre funding debacle, with a bit of redneck Maori bashing. Sadly, he is almost certainly right.
Posted by Toni at November 1, 2005 06:52 PM