John Campbell, oops

The assumption that newsreaders hold some sort of intellectual superiority was squashed a long time ago of course, but still a little concerning to see our most public faces display ignorance.

John Campbell (TV3 news) was taking email responses to an item when one response referred to Ngai Tahu as Kai Tahu.

'No, no, no, [chuckle, chuckle, chuckle]. That's NGAI Tahu dear watcher...'

Now anyone with any sort of familiarity with Maori in the South Island would know that there is a Ngai Tahu dialectical variation that sees the 'ng' replaced with a 'k'. Thus the mountain/maunga/mauka Mt. Cook/Aorangi is often called Aoraki. I work at Te Whare Wanaka o Aoraki (although I will often refer to Te Whare Wananga o Aorangi, which reflects by te reo lessons and not my tribal dialect of Tuhoe who have 'n' instead of the 'ng' and hence the old joke of the Tuhoe boy in the city who calls out 'Hey cuz, sin, sin o son!'

I assume someone from Ngai/Kai Tahu sorted him out.