Talk:Whangarei

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Picture

Does any one have a pic of the Sales when you enter Whangarei? that would make a good pic on the article --219.88.47.203 22:57, 6 May 2006 (UTC)

Well I don't have one of the Sales coming in or anything like that, just in case you could need some others, I put some in the commons category [1]--Kiwi-sonja 20:12, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

layout

Does anyone know how to place text to the left of the map box? GrahamBould 06:22, 28 May 2006 (UTC)

Are you asking how to have text in the infobox but to the left of the map? You would have to replace the line

| colspan="3" align="center"| [[image:Whangarei.png|none|320px]]

with two lines such as

| Test text

| colspan="2" align="center"| [[image:Whangarei.png|none|320px]]

Note that I've changed colspan to be "2". Please don't do this on this article, as the infobox is a standard structure.-gadfium 06:34, 28 May 2006 (UTC)

Pronunciation

An anon has changed the lead sentence, which included "(the initial consonant is often pronounced F as in fong-a-ray)", by removing the word "often". I know people who pronounce it with a "wh" sound, and I know people who pronounce it with an "f" sound. The TV3 weather, last time I checked, used the "f" sound. Is there a preferred pronounciation, and should we continue to note that both pronunciations are used?-gadfium 22:57, 3 June 2006 (UTC)

I lived in Whangarei for 4 years (1958-62). Everybody pronounced it with a W then, except my English teacher Eric Blow, who also was an announcer on the local radio station 1XN. He used the correct Maori 'Fongarei' & we all had a a bit of a laugh at that. But it seems to have caught on. Definitely older people use W, but with the resurgance of Maori culture F will take over. I vote for mentioning both. Actually the correct pronunciation is somewhere between F & W, too suble for most people :-)) GrahamBould 07:01, 4 June 2006 (UTC)

It should be more like 'fah - ngah - rey'. Actually the correct Māori is not 'fongarei'... the fong pronunciation derives from a peculiarity of English pronunciation where 'a' is said as 'o' after wh or w, a process shown by the pronunciations of wall, what, water, wander, walk, etc. Seems like English speakers tend to carry this over into their pronunciation when they use the 'f', as if they are subconciously going thru a stepped process - 1), whang... = wong, 2), change wh into f = fong...

Kahuroa 18:31, 11 October 2006 (UTC)

I grew up in Whangarei (1980-1998) and we (family, friends etc) always called it 'wong-ga-ray' with a hard 'g' sound. As far as I know this is the local pakeha pronunciation of the name, not just amongst the older generations - I am 27 years old - though I have heard 4 different pronunciations on the radio. Fa-nga-ray, fahng-ga-ray, wong-a-ray and wong-ga-ray. I would have edited the page but I can't figurre out the IPA symbols. Hope this is helpful. Ithiliennz (talk) 06:01, 29 June 2008 (UTC)

When I visited NZ (from the US) in 1990, I was told all place names that started with "WH" were pronounced like an "F." I was there for two months, in Auckland and around the Coromandel peninsula, and never heard any Kiwis use a "W" sound for any names that started with "WH." They were all pretty adamant about making sure we used the "F" sound for the "WH" in any place names like this. I suggest having both phonetic pronunciations listed in this wiki. nycdi (talk) 04:54, 30 November 2010 (UTC)

Images

Can some one upload some 'sunnier' images to at least indicate that whangarei is a warm, and somewhat less bleak place then the current images suggest.

Boys' and Girls' High Schools (Foundation)

Does anyone have information on when Boys' and Girls' High Schools separated from "Whangarei High School"? It is specious to claim that they were both founded in 1881, when they were one school of a different name then. 118.92.43.141 (talk) 09:11, 11 May 2009 (UTC)