- God's Own Country
God’s Own Country, often abbreviated to Godzone or less often Godzown, is a phrase that has been used for more than 120 years by
New Zealand ers to describe their homeland. It has subsequently been adopted by some other countries, notablyAustralia , but this has declined as the phrase has become increasingly associated with New Zealand. In recent years the phrase has been adopted as a tourist slogan by theKerala state government inIndia .New Zealand
The earliest recorded use of the phrase was as the title of a poem about New Zealand written by
Thomas Bracken [ [http://gutenberg.net.au/dictbiog/0-dict-biogBr-By.html Project Gutenburg Australia, Bracken, Thomas] ] some time in the 1880s. It was published in a book of his poems in 1890, and then again in 1893 in a book containing a selection of his works, entitled "Lays and Lyrics: God's Own Country and Other Poems." [ [http://www.dnzb.govt.nz/dnzb/default.asp?Find_Quick.asp?PersonEssay=2B35 Dictionary Of New Zealand Biography ] ] God's Own Country as a phrase was often used and popularised by New Zealand's longest serving prime minister,Richard John Seddon . He last quoted it onJune 10 ,1906 when he sent a telegram to the Victorian premier,Thomas Bent , the day before leavingSydney to return home to New Zealand. "Just leaving for God's own country," he wrote. He never made it, dying the next day on the ship "Oswestry Grange". [ [http://72.14.253.104/search?q=cache:YQqCkmb8Z8sJ:homepages.paradise.net.nz/taylorma/SkeletonWatchFeb04.pdf+Bracken+died+on+Oswestry+Grange&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=2&gl=nz] ] Bracken's "God's Own Country" is less well known internationally than "God Defend New Zealand " which he published in 1876. The latter poem, set to music byJohn Joseph Woods , was declared the country's national hymn in 1940, and made the second national anthem of New Zealand along with "God Save the Queen " in 1977.Rhodesia
The phrase "God's own country" was heard in
Rhodesia (formerly:Southern Rhodesia ) during the 1970s, where most people perceived the land as beautiful despite the ongoing Bush War at the time. Evidence of the phrase being used earlier in reference to Rhodesia can be found in the book entitled "Chartered Millions: Rhodesia and the Challenge to the British Commonwealth" by John Hobbis Harris; published 1920 by Swarthmore Press (refer to page 27). The phrase "Godzone" is distinctly different and was not used in Rhodesia.Kerala
The
slogan "God's Own Country" was first used in the context ofKerala inSouth India by Dr. Vipin Gopal when he created the firstwebpage on Kerala in 1993. [cite web |url=http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~vipin/kerala.html |title=Kerala: God's own country! |publisher=cs.cmu.edu] Later, the Kerala Tourism Development Corporation (KTDC ), agovernment agency , that conducts and regulates thetourism prospects of Kerala has been using the brand "God's Own Country" for its campaigns. The slogan now holds global Superbrand status.cite web
publisher=Government of Kerala
work=Superbrand status of Kerala Tourism brand
url=http://www.superbrandsindia.com/superbrands2003/kerala-tourism/index.htm
title=Kerala Tourism — Superbrand
accessdate=2006-08-09]Yorkshire
In the
United Kingdom the phrase is used by people fromYorkshire to describe that county, sometimes substituting the word county for country.cite news|url=http://www.guardian.co.uk/religion/Story/0,2763,1443745,00.html|publisher="Guardian Unlimited "|title=An ark park for God's own country|date=24 October 2007 ]References
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