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Even the missus, who only has a passing interest in racing said to me, why has Richard pronounced it like that?
Much as it pains me to say so, this is an occasion when Chapman is correct
Does anybody remember a minor northern jumper called Glenzier Lad? I mention him in relation to pronuciation. It is not Glenzier Lad but Glinger Lad. Named after a small village in the Border country south of Langholm near Canonbie.
Also wasn’t there once a horse called Milngavie. Named after a suburb of Glasgow called Mulgaye
didn’t his owners call him lean on the aga…?
Lean ar Aghaidh / Lean on the Aga caused me quite a problem in 1987! Basically, I was working Saturdays in those days so missed the Whitbread Gold Cup of that year, in which Lean ar Aghaidh was running. Having missed the race but having had a little bet earlier in the day, I got home and asked my parents what had won the Whitbread, to which my dad replied ‘Oh, something Haggard it was called. Looked it up on Ceefax for you’. Not ‘Lan-are-Ay then Dad’? ‘Oh no, wasn’t called that’. So, threw away my betting slip, only to find out a week later, when I went into the same bookies, that I’d won! Serves me right – I should have checked the result myself!!
Darren – AngloGerman
________________________________________‘The Hungarian’s going hell for leather’ – Jim McGrath
Richard,
As a matter of interest, who would have called at Kempton had Sandown got the go-ahead?!
Keep up the excellent work- thought you did the Lough Derg finish justice on Thursday, personally.
Have to agree with the difficulty with of pronouncing things.
Some say Matt Chapman others call him "That Orange Perma Tan Tw@t"
Hope you shake off the virus soon Richard, Still good of you to continue working though,
Jeremy,
The BHA sent out a list for a while with a few of the more obscure ones but to be honest they were often misleading anyway.
With Gaelic it is the number of diffrenet spellings and dialects that seems to be the problem. When I was at SIS there were a few letters on the wall complaining about our awful pronunciations of Irish horses in the betting shows. One day two of us rang them to seek advice on a few tricky ones and got a whole range of suggestions.
For Cill Rialag the chap I speak to tells me Cill is Kill and means church ( stem of Killarney – church by the rowan tree). Rialaig appeared to be dialect for Reilig pronounced relig (as in religion) also meaning church/graveyard.
No one has complained yet so hopefully was not too far off.I should in the interests of balance admit I was present in the booth during the notorious Fields of Fat Henry incident at SIS many years ago though not doing the shows.
Noted with thanks, Richard. I’d forgotten about Fields of Fat Henry!
I seem to remember Grandstand interviewing a load of punters as to how they were pronouncing Lean ar Aghaidh the year he was quite a fancy for the National – for their pains they got everything from “Lean on the Aga” to “Lenny Henry”.
gc
Think it was John Hunt who did the racecourse commentary at Haydock when I saw the JP/Jonjo O’Neill horse Liathroidsneachta run who I’ve been inform should be pronounced “leef–a-shlakta” . Thankfully he’s not quite as good as Lean Ar Aghaidh
Think it was John Hunt who did the racecourse commentary at Haydock when I saw the JP/Jonjo O’Neill horse Liathroidsneachta run who I’ve been inform should be pronounced "leef–a-shlakta" . Thankfully he’s not quite as good as Lean Ar Aghaidh
Talking of John Hunt and Gaelic runners.
At Warwick back in early November there was the requisite tongue twister which caused some pre-racing discussion as to how it should be pronounced. John was calling and was asked how he was going to pronounce it. He responded, half jokingly, he would get round it by hardly mentioning it in commentary. Needless to say the best set off in front and could not be ignored.
Of course being the professional he is John did what most callers do and tracked down the trainer and followed his lead as regards the pronunciation.
Then there is the pronunciation of Caislean Na Deirge, which I think I have heard pronounced correctly on few occasions.
In my opinion it should be pronounced as if you were saying –
Cash-lawn Na Durj.
Then there is the pronunciation of Caislean Na Deirge, which I think I have heard pronounced correctly on few occasions.
In my opinion it should be pronounced as if you were saying –
Cash-lawn Na Durj.
Pretty good, but the "g" will be hard in Deirge and the "D" would be pronounced more like a soft "g"; in my part of the world, the last word would almost be pronounced "Jerrig-e". The Irish word for red is "Dearg" which is usually pronounced "Jarg" (a pronounced sharply as in the word back), but in the north we tend to pronounce it "Jarr-eg" as if another vowel sound was in existence. Caslean Na Dearg is the Irish name for the town of Castlederg which gives an idea of its anglicisation. It means Castle of the Red (River), the river it stands on being the Derg in Tyrone.
Edit: Deirge is the genitive case of Dearg "of the red/belonging to the red(s) "; the genitive case slenderises the vowels in a word and appears to pluralise the word. Eg The house is "An Teach", pronounced "An Chagh" where the gh is like the gh in lough or the ch in loch. Woman of the house is "Bean na Ti" pronounced "Ban na Tee". Man of the house is "Fear an Ti" ; one is "na Ti" because the noun preceding it is feminine while the other is "an Ti" because the preceding noun (fear) is masculine. Confused yet?
Maith an fear Rory!
(ironically we’d often say "bullai fear" in the north, which gives rise to the expression "bully boy" although the meaning is utterly changed these days)
The Judge,
Would have been Malcolm had both meetings gone ahead.
I remember Liathroidsneachta which if I remember right means snowball which seems a lot of letters !!
Liathróidí Sneachta does indeed mean snowballs Richard. As an Irishman I’m impressed!
I remember Ted Walsh having a right rant on the Morning Line at Cheltenham a few years ago when Edward O’Grady’s O’Muircheartaigh was running in the Supreme Novices. He had a right go at the Channel 4 crew after none of them could pronounce the name of the horse (who is named after the GAA commentator Mícheál Ó Muircheartaigh).
I think he said that they learned to pronounce the names of French horses properly and they should do the same for the Irish ones.
Liathróidí Sneachta does indeed mean snowballs Richard. As an Irishman I’m impressed!
I remember Ted Walsh having a right rant on the Morning Line at Cheltenham a few years ago when Edward O’Grady’s O’Muircheartaigh was running in the Supreme Novices. He had a right go at the Channel 4 crew after none of them could pronounce the name of the horse (who is named after the GAA commentator Mícheál Ó Muircheartaigh).
I think he said that they learned to pronounce the names of French horses properly and they should do the same for the Irish ones.
I believe that Ted’s first rant was at Big Mac’s pronunciation of Rince Ri.
Simon Holt had a decent go at O’Muircheartaigh; again the anglicisation helps and O’Muircheartaigh is anglicised as a surname to "Moriarty"; again, a vowel sound is introduced after the first syllable. One of the big problems of pronouncing gaelic names is all the aitches which appear. These are NOT letters in Irish! The addition of an aitch after a written consonant is relatively new, and used to be denoted by a single dot and is called aspiration. "Mh" is pronounced like "V" or "W" depending on whether the following vowel is broad or slender, while "Th" sounds just like a hard "H" sound; its hard to describe what "Gh" and "Ch" always sound like ~ essentially it’s like softening the sound of a hard C or G by letting your breath out sharply through the teeth, which is essentially what aspiration means.
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