These sobriquets eluded many of us, too, at the beginning, but we put our heads together in the "graduation" thread here in Miscellany and figgered it out (empirically, mind you). Take a look.

the more you post the higher in rank you get, it seems. the titles aren't very friendly, are they!
never mind, you're not a stranger to us!

well, I posted this in another thread before seeing this, but the post requirements are: for newbie, 25; for journeyman, 50; for member, 100; for enthusiast, 200, and for addict, 400. I'm guessing the next one is at 800.

>>nga whakawhetai kia koe, kia ora mai.

"Whatever will be, will be"? "Wherever you go, there you are"? I'd bet money--almost--that it is something similar
to one of these.

Incidentally, Max, I have absolutely no clue as to which
homophone you'd like me to switch.

>Here in NZ a campaign has been started to encourage all NZers to use whatever Maori they know, so nga whakawhetai kia koe, kia ora mai.<

Having just come back from my first ever trip to New Zealand (why does snow fall the day before your ski trip ends?), I have to say I was impressed by the amount of Maori used in the papers. There were a couple of articles I simply didn't understand because I didn't know what key words meant.

The Bledisloe Cup match was also preceded by the Kiwi national anthem in Maori and then in English, but I noticed that the players didn't look too comfortable singing in Maori. When were the Maori words written, and do they match the English words in meaning? (The only one I recognised was Aotearoa.)

When I was growing up, I'm sure Kia Ora was the name of a brand of orange drink. Used to be advertised at the cinema by a procession of wodnerfully shaped cartoon birds who sang 'We adore a Kia Ora.' Or something like that.

So why do I think it means 'Good morning'?