A legend who lived life on the edge. A discussion we have regularly in the newsroom delves into the correct names of local places.

Often we are supplied information which is incorrect or mis-spelled. It's the moral and ethical duty of a newspaper to at least try to get it right. That's why it's important that subeditors are locals, who know the region's place names, personalities and local quirks – not stationed in a newsroom in some far off city or even another country, as tends to be the case these days of large corporate newspaper ownership.
Just as call centres and customer help desks are often located in some distant land and manned by people with a shaky grasp on how to pronounce the letters R and L and even shakier grasp on the English language and the geography between Otamarakau and Waihi Beach; so is local knowledge vital to a sensible news organisation.
Your little old Weekend Sun is staffed and edited by real people who live right here in the Western Bay of Plenty. Dang, some of us have been here so long, we play the banjo.
We don't always get it right, but it's fun trying.
There are some peculiar spellings and unofficial names of places and we go to great pains to try to get it right.
So let's start with Whakamarama, which is not Whakamaramara despite the best efforts of some to extend its already lengthy name with the extra syllable, like a spare wheel bolted to the back door of a four wheel drive. They've got enough Ms and As and Rs up there.
We often hear about Red Square, which of course doesn't officially exist in Tauranga. It used to be the swampy end of Spring Street but when it was closed to traffic and turned into a mall around time my trousers were flared, the first lot of gawdy red pavers earned it the nickname. Officially it's the Mid City Mall, but locals still call it Red Square and probably always will. So we've given in to popular pressure. Power to the people, comrades.
Another regular, and one of my personal favourites, is McLaren Falls, which is often incorrectly referred to as McLaren's or McLarens. (At this point I will apologise to the McLaren family in advance for the creative extrapolation)
I'm sure there's a lovely historian in a dusty corner somewhere who knows the official story of the naming of the Falls. But according to my excellent education (thanks Miss Thomas and Mrs Cook) it's the spelling of this place name that gives all the necessary vital clues to the complete story. It starts with the lack of a plural, or apostrophe denoting ownership, from which we can only assume the following:
There's been some dreadful mistake in the application, or omission, of an apostrophe which has changed the course of history.
OR…There was only one McLaren. Otherwise it would be McLarens. And…
He or she didn't own the falls, otherwise it would McLaren's. And…
If it had been owned by multiple McLarens, it would be McLarens'.
Therefore the area must have been named after only a singular non-waterfall-owning McLaren who fell. The rest of the McLaren clan must have just staggered and lurched and maybe scuffed their spats, but didn't actually fall over.
Now to my way of thinking (which many of you consider warped and dangerous, but nevertheless logical, in a rambling, ranting kind of way) the only reasonable explanation for the naming of this waterfall is that it was the place where one lonely McLaren fell over, and nothing to do with the waterfall itself. The fact that a river ran over a cliff nearby in the area where McLaren toppled, is purely coincidental.
Now if you consider that with a name like McLaren he/she must have been Scottish, then it's likely he/she was approaching the area of the falls in his/her kilt.
If you've seen the size of the boulders up there (up the falls, not up his kilt) you'll understand that jumping around the rocks in low-hanging tartan would indeed be a perilous pastime and it's not surprising that McLaren fell. We can assume also that he was male, since rock hopping around an un-named waterfall wearing a picnic blanket is only the sort of thing a bloke would do, probably after one too many Glenfiddich. The good McLaren women, so much wiser and sensible, would have been home, minding the wee bairns, making haggis and shaking their heads, saying to each other, 'Och ey, why roark hopping? Why canna the auld bogger noot doer regoolar sporart, like indooer bools?”
It's logical to assume the rock-traversing Scotsman also wore a sporran. Indeed, the sporran would have been even more of a hindrance to McRockhopper.
There are two important valuable life coaching points to be gleaned from the hard lessons learnt by our friend McLaren.
Keep your sporran hitched high at all times so it doesn't swing dangerously close to your boulders.
Use apostrophes wisely and correctly, or run the risk of having history re-written by some wisecrack in a newspaper column with far too much time on his hands.
Stick with the original Maori name which probably translates as: 'The place where Mahuta and the bros had a good laugh at the bandy pakeha who went leg-up and skinned his knees.”