As a country of skuxes, Aotearoa spits yarns using unique language. Combine that with us being a little nosey and a lotta nice, and we’ve got some really strange compliments that could only arise in our corner of the world.
On the New Zealand subreddit, u/Librat69 asked: “What’s the ‘most Kiwi’ compliment you’ve ever received?”. They kicked things off by sharing the Kiwi-est nicety sent their way.
When wearing a pair of black retro Air Jordan 7s, a customer looked at their feet and said: “Faaaaaaaaaa my son would SO roll you for those! Those are mean”.
Over 100 people responded and they are all golden.
“One time a coworker saw me outside of work and said I looked ‘skux as’,” shared one person. Classic.
“Bro, you got Johah Lomu calves,” a self-described “big guy” in the army was told.
“I paid for something with my Apple Watch over pay-wave and the cashier said, ‘Did you just pay with your watch?’. When I said ‘yeah’ they exclaimed really loudly: ‘Too flash!’,” a third added.
“Mean ride g, u pinch it bo?” a guy with a sick car once received.
Another commenter’s nana once asked them: “Moko, they been starving you at home?”.
In a more emotional one, a “white English boy” was “hit hard” when someone told him: “You have mana”.
“It was a little comment made in regards to some work I had been doing,” he shared. “I never expected to be described that way. I don’t think any other culture could use that statement with such impact”.
Doubt you’re gonna hear any of these overseas so enjoy them while you’re here.
If you’re interested in why our slang is the way it is, we did some digging on the origins of some classic Aotearoa slang words to find out. Chur, ya skux!
