Even if I had been able to produce one, I am not sure it would stop the ridicule.
That’s the sad thing about some of my family members. They can find it hard to move on.
One thing that bugs several of them is my pronunciation of rodeo without the ‘‘e’’ sound, saying rodayo.
My only supporter is my older brother. He doesn’t know why he says rodayo either.
Every now and then I hear someone say rodayo in public and I excitedly fire off texts to the whanau extolling the wit and wisdom of that person (Jim Mora is among them as I recall).
They have been unmoved.
The issue has reared its ugly head again, unexpectedly sparked by New Zealand First leader Winston Peters appearing on an election ad. Winnie with a whinnying horse. Could it be more silly? Maybe if there was rearing involved.
It prompted a feverish text to the whanau: Winston Peters says rodeo the way I do. Should I be concerned?
The replies dribbled in.
Murchison-dwelling sister and QC (Queen of Cookery): Yes. Very concerned.
Earthquake Baby (the other sister from Murchison) after clarification of my pronunciation: I’d say that to be a tit but not for realsies.
Me: Oh c’mon. Winnie and I need someone to support us who doesn’t have grey hair.
EB: For that reason alone, I am out.
Me: Incidentally, should I take someone who uses the word realsies seriously?
EB: For suresies.
Last Born (another wannabe Prime Minister): I’m rock solid that you should be concerned.
Me: Are you sure you are not just comfortable and confident?
Two of the offspring had the good sense to remain silent.
Not the First Born who responded: I heard him last week saying rodeo wrong and thought, you and your forrid.
This was a sneaky dig at my questioning his pronunciation of the word forehead when he was telling his daughter about that part of the body.
He attempted to make me a laughingstock, asking several people what they called forehead. They all said faw-hed rather than forrid. He will not care I can show him a plethora of dictionaries which list the forrid pronunciation first.
And, incidentally, if it was good enough for Henry Wadsworth Longfellow in his poem about the little girl with the little curl right in the middle of her you know what, it is good enough for me. But then I am known for being horrid.
I could have tried deflection, telling him he should be grateful I am not tediously braying ‘‘Up the Wahs!’’ every few seconds.
Explaining is losing. Never back down. My rodayo/forrid stance echoes the vibe from the National Party over the rock-solid magical thinking behind its comfort and confidence over funding for promised tax cuts. The longer the refusal to release the modelling behind its flimsy foreign buyers scheme drags on, the more I suspect there either isn’t any modelling to release or it is on a par with doodling on a dirty serviette at the end of a drunken night out.
The party is banking on voters being so keen on tax cuts they won’t care how they are funded or whether reducing tax makes any sense given what we face after successive governments’ underspending on many vital services.
The other possibility is that while National’s leaders are being badgered by the media about the modelling, nobody is talking to them about the policies we still haven’t seen from them. There’s that little matter of climate change which both major parties seem to be running a mile from discussing in any coherent way. The drip, drip, dripping of policy titbits, all at a pace chosen by the parties, does my head in.
Ridiculously, when the subject of GP funding arose in a television debate at the weekend between the two wannabe next health ministers, Dr Shane Reti told us we would have to wait for the rest of the party’s health manifesto to find out National’s promises. All this stuff should be before the public by now so we can examine it properly before voting starts, but National doesn’t think it has to because it is doing well in the polls.
Its leader can’t bear to talk about Winnie either. Nor can I, despite his top-notch rodeo pronunciation.
■Elspeth McLean is a Dunedin writer.
