A “Kiwi” from New Zealand is a Flightless Bird, Not a Fruit

I had a similar moment when I was on a sight-seeing tour at The Alamo in San Antonio, Texas. The tour guide was explaining the last battle at the Alamo and how everyone died and I thought to myself, everyone died?

Note: You see, I knew the famous battle cry “Remember the Alamo” and always thought it was meant as a inspirational battle cry… along the lines of “remember all those brave soldiers who faced certain defeat and survived, let’s go win this”.

In any event, on with my story...

On August 23, on my arrival in Auckland, New Zealand I visited the Sky Tower and before heading up the tallest tower in the Southern Hemisphere I watched the “History of New Zealand” movie. It was in this movie that they described how New Zealand was formed after numerous volcano explosions and for years the country lived remote and protected from the rest of the world to the point that these Kiwi birds didn’t have any predators and thus lost their ability to fly. Then the light bulb went off!

New Zealanders are called Kiwis after the bird, not the fruit!

The next day I confirmed that indeed when people refer to New Zealanders as Kiwis they initially meant the flightless bird and only after a marketer branded “gooseberries” kiwis did the name of the fruit become more popularly known as “kiwis”.