Talk:Bach (New Zealand)

Etymology?

Is "bach" short for "bachelor house"? Or what? Stevage 02:09, 14 September 2007 (UTC)

That is a possibility, though unlikely given what they were actually used for. It is a pity that the article claims that this is the origin.203.184.41.226 (talk) 07:31, 29 June 2013 (UTC)

Before middle income New Zealand families were commonly able to own holiday beach houses in the 20th century, the bach was already in existence. Right from the beginning of European colonisation in NZ, single men (of which there were many more than married men) lived in small houses which were known as bachelor's houses or bachelor cottages or bachelor cribs (note not bachelor pad). They are often also called railway houses if that was their intended useage. They were so small, they were not suitable for families, (though out of necessity many a family squeezed into them) and they were quickly constructed from available materials, first raupo then rusticated weatherboards and tin roofs (corrugated iron roof). Because early to mid-20th century holiday homes resembled these in size and quality or in some cases were converted from these, they were nicknamed baches except in the southern south island where the term crib became more common. 203.118.157.84 (talk) 11:46, 13 August 2014 (UTC)

That is some great historical background. Do you know where we could find a reference for this? 82.224.150.242 (talk) 17:54, 27 June 2015 (UTC)

I find the Welsh etymology relating it to Welsh bach 'small' to be extremely spurious. Welsh 'bach' is pronounced to rhyme with 'buck', not with 'batch'. Ari T. Benchaim (talk) 23:53, 30 April 2022 (UTC)

Absolutely agree - moreover, Welsh immigration to New Zealand was not very numerous. I note that according to etymonline, 'bach' exists in American English "as a verb (1864, typically with it) meaning "to live as an unmarried man," especially "to do one's own cooking and cleaning." Whether influenced by the American usage or not, I think this is a far more probable derivation. Looking through Google books, the earliest references to "bach" I can find in NZ English are from the 1930s: the NZ Railway Magazine uses the word in 1937, and it occurs in Hansard a few times over the next decade before really picking up popularity in the 1960s and 1970s. 222.154.104.125 (talk) 12:00, 24 October 2023 (UTC)