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Brian Rogers Rogers Rabbits www.sunlive.co.nz |
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Readers have been vociferous in their responses to our exclusive story last week on the missing star scandal.
We're not entirely sure what vociferous means, but we won't be messing with vociferocity. You've wasted no time in expressing your contempt for the cover-up which has left our National Anthem one star short of a constellation – the musical equivalent of being a sandwich short of a picnic.
But there is good news: The Weekend Sun's investigations have successfully found the National Anthem's missing star.
This week we launch a nation-wide campaign to re-instate the fourth star to ‘God Defend New Zealand', and we've an astute reader to thank for pointing us in the right direction to re-discover it.
For those who missed it, we revealed the National Anthem being chortled on
the other side of the world at the Rugby World Cup and other auspicious places, is sadly 25 per cent bereft of the correct number of stars. This is when compared to the National Flag, which has four.
A decades-long anomaly.
What's in a name?
The Anthem speaks of the triple star, which according to my mathematics skills, thanks to teachers Mrs Anne Whiteley and Mr Henry Dixon, equates to a star deficit of exactly 1.0 with a margin of error of nil per cent.
And may I convey to my former maths teachers my best wishes in their retirement, content in the knowledge that finally something they taught me has been of use in my career.
I do not buy into the argument proposed by a number of RR readers that the ‘stars' refer to three islands of NZ.
If the anthem meant ‘islands' it would have said ‘isles' or ‘land masses' or any number of other descriptions for lumps of land. Anything, except celestial bodies that shine down from the heavens.
It is clear that our National Anthem contains major geographical, astronomical blunders. And considering we are thinking (well, the PM is) of changing our flag, this is the time to either sort out the stars on the flag, or sort out the stars in the Anthem.
As we said last week, "you can't have it both ways".
Readers on the case
Correspondence this week started with a letter from Gabrielle, with an explanation of biblical proportions:
"In poetry or song verse, punctuation changes and sentences carry over to the next line because of rhythm and cadence. So you've analysed the meaning wrongly. This is how it would read as prose: God of nations, (Like ‘Dear Sir,') At Thy feet, we meet in the bonds of love.
"Notice that Thy has a capital T meaning God, not us! So the meaning is that we kneel at the feet of God in bonds of unity with one another.
"The others verses of the anthem, while saying some good stuff, I agree does pose some mystery with the stars and the van. I'm sure there's a reasonable explanation but at this point it's a question mark."
We agree that is plausible, however that is not the way the anthem is sung. It is burbled as "God of Nations at thy feet" etc and there's some major issues of punctuation, which tip the whole concept on its head.
Next up is reader Gaye Hemsley, whose feedback is highly regarded here at RR:
"As soon as I read ‘Guard Pacific's Star'
I recall being informed at school that meant our three Islands North, South and Stewart.
"Have you noticed that Stewart Island very seldom has a mention when listening to the weather forecast? The good nuns at school were very proud of our national anthem saying it was also a hymn referring to God.
However, they never did inform us the meaning of words in prayers we rattled off as a child. I always wondered what the words in the Hail Mary meant: Blessed is the fruit of try womb Jesus."
Gaye, along with many of us, have clearly been brainwashed about stars taking on the persona of islands. We won't, however, be delving into issues with regard to fruit and wombs.
But here is what we believe is the most likely explanation of the Missing Star Saga.
Ray Fowke says he remembers singing the anthem at school in Ashburton in the 1940s.
The line "Guarding Pacific's triple star" was actually sung as "truple".
That sent us on a week-long search to finally crack the puzzle, of why the nation's flag flutters with four stars, yet the country sings a song with only three.
Truple is an old abbreviation of quadruple, but the little known word
seems to have been incorrectly substituted with "triple" over the years.
Well versed
Regardless of whether the author Thomas Bracken meant the original to be truple, or not, there is only one reasonable course of action – for us to fix the wording of the anthem to "Guard Pacific's Truple Star" and correct a mistake that has haunted.
If we can spend $26m on debating a flag change that the majority don't want, and didn't want in the first place, the least we can do is spend a bit of effort making our national anthem anatomically correct.
It's also a great way to celebrate and embrace some old language, at a time when so many stupid new-fangled modern words are swamping our vocabulary.
We're bringing back the truple, and the star with it!
Finally, here's a bombshell from recidivist reader Mike Mellelieu:
"I appreciate your concern regarding the missing star in our National Anthem. There is another verse which is rarely sung, and which mentions this problem:
To the tune of ‘God Defend New Zealand' (sing it to yourself):
"Twinkle ,twinkle, lit-tle star,
How I wonder where you are
Up above the world so high.
Like a tea towel in the sky." – Mike.
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