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As when it ran a fortnight ago Lydia repeatedly called this beast Homarge last night, but why? Steve Mellish followed her in by doing the same but what was their thinking? One has a university education and the other is a son of an ex Labour MP
Maybe they were influenced by Martin Harris’s mispronunciation during in his commentary a couple of weeks ago.I can see no French connotations to the horse in breeding or ownership so see no issue in the pronunciation, you don’t pay homarge to something, you pay homage to it don’t you?
Thankfully as I forecast to the missus, Richard Hoiles saved the day in his commentary, even Oli Bell managed to get it right when reading the result.
Sadly this made no difference to Lydia & Steve.This may seem like a minor issue and of course it is but I find it very irritating to have a word such as homage repeatedly mispronounced and I know how much racing commentators and presenters care about their pronunciation.
PS
There’s no need for an in depth discussion everytime Spifer runs, funny at first but a bit tedious now. Surely pronounced Spifer, would have 2 f’s if pronounced Spiffer wouldn’t it?In fairness most commentators do try their best to find the correct pronunciation of a horses name and Richard is one of the most diligent.
Last Saturday at Epsom, Richard, Simon and Hunty sat down together to go through the card to check / agree pronunciations and they were later joined by judge Nick Bostock. Indeed it is quite common for the commentator and judge to get together to agree pronunciations.
I know of one course where there is a "formal" meeting before racing where pronunciation is discussed.
Where there is a query about pronunciation they do try, where possible, to get a definitive answer from connections but that isn’t always practicable.
If a definitive answer cannot be found they then tend look at precedent from previous races and if it is still questionable there tends to be a chat with the judge so they both, at least, use the same pronunciation.
Occasionally connections will actually seek out the commentator where there is a tricky name. On more than one occasion I have known Irish connections of runners with Gaelic names pop into the press room to advise of the correct pronunciation.
It sounds as if homage, rather than hormage, was the intended pronunciation.
The pronunciation police should be more concerned about how RALPH of this parish suddenly, and without due explanation, morphed into RAiF ( as in Beckett, Feinnes et al ).
Gambling Only Pays When You're Winning
Jeeves: Ladies who spell Gwladys with a W are seldom noted for their reliability. It gives them romantic notions.
Wooster: With a W, Jeeves? No, no. You spell it with a G.
J: If I might draw your attention
to the signature, sir.W: Good Lord! G-W?
J: I blame Alfred Lord Tennyson and his Idylls Of The Kings. It also accounts for Kathryn, Isybel and Ethyl all spelt with a Y. But Gwladys is a particularly virulent form.
pretension regles n’est-ce pas
In the sense of a dedication or approval to someone or something, homage (with an ‘r’) is very much an English word. E.g. a film could be described as being an homage to Hitchcock.
The fact that the racehorse Homage’s sire is
Acclamation
leads me to believe that Messrs Hislop & Mellish may be correct in this case.
Mike
It’s really personal preference, though choosing French pronunciations or suppletions does tend to raise sneers of pretension, sometimes justifiably, sometimes not
If the sire were Affectation rather than Acclamation then Homage might have been an even cleverer name
Anyway, this article says all that needs to be said:
http://www.grammarphobia.com/blog/2010/ … ation.html
And may I say how nice it was to see everyone spell ‘commingling’ correctly on t’other thread
Does anyone remember Julian Wilson’s pronunciation of the top class Dick Hern colt Unfuwain?
Homage (or Homarge) is child’s play compared to that. Homage is surely correct though.Shall I?
Do you think I should..?
Oh, go on then you’ve talked me into it.
For the fifteenth time on this site…
CUE DESSIE SCAHILL AND QUANTATIVEEASING!!
http://www.attheraces.com/VideoConsole/?va=PUN_2009_04_28_07_1915&vaff=16
Mike
Does anyone remember Julian Wilson’s pronunciation of the top class Dick Hern colt Unfuwain?
Dear old Jules contrived to pronounce Unfuwain as "Uff-warn" (rhyming with "yarn") every time it ran. Thus ensuring he was ridiculed as a bit of a pretentious b’stard.
Which reminds me, ex-BBC jumps expert Richard Pitman also insisted on pronouncing the jockey Malcolm Bas*tard as Malcolm B’stard.
Another horse that attracted different pronunciations many years ago was Mcgillycuddyreeks.
Commentators such as (notably) Raleigh Gilbert, Robin Gray, Iain Mackenzie and (belatedly) Graham Goode insisted on saying Macna-cullyreeks while others such as, especially, Mark Slater, pronounced it as Magillycuddyreeks.
We were assured at the time, by Raleigh and GG naturally, that the Macna-cullyreeks was the correct version.
John Oaksey’s pronunciation of Master Golfer as Master Goffer, no doubt reflecting his privileged background, was picked up with amusement several times by Simon Holt.
There are still examples these days of different pronunciations of the same name by different members of TV teams. I do wish THEY would have a meeting and agree to stick to one version.
Thank goodness we can rely on the estimable Tanya Stevenson to pronounce "betting" by its correct and more widely accepted pronunciation of "bedding".
Given the number of odd names inflicted on horses one must pity the poor commentator really. Just how Unfuwain – which is presumably Arabic for something or other – should be pronounced, who knows but I’m sure the phlegmy Semitic guttural plosive features prominently
Some may recall a chaser called Burrator, named after Burra Tor on Dartmoor who Peter O’Sullevan insisted on calling ‘boorayter’ with emphasis on the second syllable. Now there’s probably only me and Mr Pilsen on this forum who know of Burra Tor so blame can hardly be hurled at O’Sullevan for poor research
As for that nemesis of commentators calls, Xaipete, the eventual consensus was that Richard Hoiles’ ‘kyrotay’ was correct as the name would appear to be a literal phonetic transfer into our Latin alphabet from the Greek:
xi
– Greek letter chi and
p
– Greek letter rho
Horse names are an enduring source of curiosity
Does anyone remember Julian Wilson’s pronunciation of the top class Dick Hern colt Unfuwain?
Yes, I think Wilson pronounced the one time Derby favourite’s name as Oon-fwan.
* In fairness to Sir Peter O’Sullevan though; whereas everyone I know pronounced Henry Cecil’s great miler Kris as Chris ( as we would
), O’Sullevan always correctly pronounced the horse’s name ( so named after a dagger ) as crease. Gambling Only Pays When You're Winning
On the subject of Julian Wilson, anyone remember the handicapper Morgannwg (Welsh for Glamorgan), who JW repeated called as "Mor-gann-ooog"?
Homage won again at Windsor today
The commentator called it Homarge but the owners want it to be pronounced hommidge
I suppose they can pronounce it however they want, but there are two different popular (and correct) pronunciations for the two slightly different uses of the word. Well done betlarge
Hommidge as in "pay homage"
but Hom-arge when it’s preceded by the indefinite article
The suggestion that the second pronunciation doesn’t exist is wrong
And "it’s" only has an apostrophe when it’s short for "it is"
Another mis-pronounced name is that of Scottish jockey, Danny Tudhope.
I flagged this up on these very pages some time ago, but no one took any notice at all.Why the concern, you ask.
Because, I know the family. I also know that the family ( as does every other Scot ) pronounce Tudhope as Tew-dup, not TUD HOPE, the preferred ( and wrong ! ) choice of pronuniciation of the sassenach commentators and others residing south of the Tweed.
So come on guys, get it right – it’s Danny Tewdup, not Danny Tud Hope.
Trust me ladies and gentlemen ; I speak the truth.
Gambling Only Pays When You're Winning
Because, I know the family. I also know that the family ( as does every other Scot ) pronounce Tudhope as Tew-dup, not TUD HOPE, the preferred ( and wrong ! ) choice of pronuniciation of the sassenach commentators and others residing south of the Tweed.
Don’t concern yourself too much H, come independence it will be mandatory for all commentary north of the Great Divide to be broadcast in The Bard’s Lowland Scots, perhaps Gaelic at Perth
Dear Dougie Fraser, where are you when we need you most
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