Last night on TV, I was watching a programme in which Sir Peter Ustinov was retracing Mark Twain's voyage around the world. The episode featured Hawaii, Australia, and New Zealand. Apart from learning a lot about the American subjugation and annexation of Hawaii, I was reminded of another uniquely New Zealand regionalism. Upon arrival in NZ, Ustinov was shown driving along a country road, narrating as he went. He said "I'm in North Island," and that's what gave him away as someone not from New Zealand. An editorial here once remarked upon this distinction. NZers almost invariably use the article. I, for example would automatically say that I live in the North Island, while my aunt lives in the South Island. The editorial commented that this indicates that NZers are not treating North and South as the names of the islands, simply as compass designations. Ever since reading that article years ago, I have listened out for examples, and found that by far the majority of people from outside NZ (excluding most Australians - the 400,000 NZers living there have probably had an influence on that) treat North and South as titles, in the same way Ustinov did.
The shame here is that the three main islands have aurally pleasing, and historically relevant Maori names, which I think ought to be adopted as the official names of the islands, so that instead of the North Island, the South Island, and Stewart Island, we would have te Ika a Maui, te Wai Pounamu, and Rakiura.
Believe it or not, there really is a question after all that background context. Does anybody else use English in a subtle but distinctively different way to refer to their home, analogous to the way NZers retain the article when talking about our main islands? Something small, not necessarily dialect, but a dead giveaway for distinguishing Outlanders from "indigenous" residents?
