Max Cryer Tracking the Vernacular

Appearing at Going West in 2002, Max Cryer talks about New Zealand’s vernacular English and its origins. As he notes, “We live in New Zealand. We speak a language of our own. We think we speak English, but then so do the people in Texas.”

An inimitable lover of language and a writer, columnist, linguist, singer, and entertainer, Max takes the audience a wry tour of our New Zealand English dialect. He tells us why we say cuzzie, kindy and mozzie (hypocorism), why our inflection goes up at the end of our sentences (terminal lift), and why we can’t pronounce ‘colonisation’ correctly (metathesis).

In his decades-long career, Max has been a household name in New Zealand as everything from an entertainer to an expert etymologist. His books on words and phrases are best sellers, some in their second editions including in 2020’s The Godzone Dictionary of favourite New Zealand words and phrases.