A Processional Name

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXXIII, Issue 41, 12 October 1905, Page 18

A Processional Name

Artemus Ward bad a profound veneration for long words. He was vasll7 impressed by the ' graniidiloguent profundity" of a discussion on a point of physiology between two doctor-diggers, who ' used words tih'at word over a foot lcrng by actual measurement ' In a -similar way, Mark Twain's imagination and sense of sound were stimulated toy the long and (so to speaki) bouldery place-names that ho found scattered over Australia — especially Wooloomooloo, which he found not indeed the longest, but the most ' gurgly ' and musical of them all. New Zealand probably holds the belt of all the lands under the Southern Cross for the processional length of its place-names. Here are a, few parting samples taken from some vagrant verses in the ' Triad ' which tell the fate that befell ' Al 'German gent who deemed Ins jaw Was proof 'gainst lingual dislocation,' till ho essayed so>me ' modes of Maori promunci'ation ' :— ' He was (quite at home at Rotomahana, He nicely turned Tewh-akarewaiewa ; But alas ainrl alack ! his jaw wont crack At Tetaumatawhakatangitamgihangakoauaualamatea.' A footnote to the ' Triad ' ' pome ' says ' This long name is applied to a hummock or sloping ndge of ' Mount Egjmont — l The-brow-uponrwiiich-Tamatea-played-his-flute ' in serenading his la<ly-love.' Some years- ago a County Council in South Canterbury found it neccssaiy, m selfdefence, to alter a place-name with a procession of alphabet that looked like the tail of a kite. But we think the Sipot where the Maou Othello serenaded his brown-skinned Desdemona may toe allowed to bear the sesquipedalian palm.