Sweet as is Kiwi as
Language Matters
It is hard to imagine a Kiwi broadcasting company demanding that presenters use the Queen’s English on New Zealand radio or TV stations. But back in the 1950s, at the height of the cultural cringe and dissatisfaction with the colonial twang,
this was the reality for many aspiring journalists. Fast forward 70-80 years and where are we now?
The voices we hear nowadays on NZ radio and TV seem to be more like our own. And perhaps the recognition that New Zild is here to stay is not only sinking in; some might even say that it is embraced with great pride. Our accent was voted the sexiest accent in the world, according to a report in the Independent
(April 2019). We can argue about the validity of that claim and the exact reasons for it – sex appeal of accents is rarely linked to anything linguistic! Nevertheless, our way of speaking English, or, more accurately, our ways of speaking it are making headlines around the world.
One interesting development in our journey towards embracing NZ English has been the commercialisation of the phrase sweet as. When I left for my first job, in England, 10 years ago, I was proudly sporting a red Global Culture T-shirt, with the phrase sweet as plastered over its front in big letters and a short description of its meaning in small letters below. (It certainly made for entertaining conversation when people misread it and kept wondering why it was on the wrong body part, on the front of a T-shirt rather than the back of pants – or should I say, trousers.)
While souvenir shops and other commercial ventures, like the reusable bags from Pak’n Save, pounced on this bit of Kiwiana with great enthusiasm, the linguistic community has remained largely silent on the matter. Apart from one article by Laurie and Winifred Bauer, there is hardly any detailed analysis of its use. The main reason for the silence is that, while sweet as is salient to speakers (we are aware of it), it has been (at least, until recently) not especially frequent. But this is changing.
In the past, we might have seen a handful of adjectives, typically sweet or
Kiwi, followed by the comparative as, in descriptions of an entity, occurring after the verb: his car is sweet as; this bach is Kiwi as. Alternatively, we might hear
sweet as on its own, meaning something like OK. What we are now beginning to see is a widening use of the formula [adjective + as] with more adjectives
(happy, funny, flash, ugly, dumb, mean, whakama¯ ), and not just with gradable adjectives (which can be intensified) – we also have pregnant as (just how pregnant can one be?). It also appears in other positions in the sentence: his big as car could hardly fit.
What is more, although sweet as used to be confined to speech, except for Pak’n Save reusable bags and Global Culture T-shirts, [adjective + as] may also be making its way into written NZ English:
‘‘What were you thinking? Running around in the rain with it. It’s pretty scratched, and dented as. You’re a neglectful musician.’’ (Becky Manawatu,
Aue¯, 2019, Ma¯ karo Press, pages 103-104). While still relating speech, the example is found in print and my hunch is that such uses will continue to spread to other genres too, including (actual) writing.
This feature of NZ English grammar certainly seems to be growing in popularity, confirming that we are becoming more comfortable in our own, sweet as Kiwi English tongue.
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