University Challenge

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

It's late - I've been making puns since before breakfast - time for bed.

[Bryn]

à = "a"

a = more like 'o'

Hence it sounds more like Tomas than Tamas.

Surname sounds like Vasary - with equal stress on the three syllables...

Is the "s" not more like our "sh", as in "keep quiet"?

[Nick Armstrong]

Is the "s" not more like our "sh", as in "keep quiet"?

Yes that's true. I was concentrating on Ferney's irritating vowel syndrome!


G'night John Boy!

[jean]

...Hence it sounds more like Tomas than Tamas...

That's a bit like the German Braun, which English people like to pronounce Brawn when it's really the same word as Brown.

[gurnemanz]

That's a bit like the German Braun, which English people like to pronounce Brawn when it's really the same word as Brown.

I'm all for authentic pronunciation but am prepared to make an exception for the philosopher, Kant.

[Zucchini]

That's certainly how Kodály's friend and pupil, my friend and neighbour Tamás Vásáry, pronounces his name!

But he's lived in your part of London so long that his pronunciation must surely be tainted by the local Eastenders accent...

[Nick Armstrong]

But he's lived in your part of London so long that his pronunciation must surely be tainted by the local Eastenders accent...

Nah Mate

Actually haven't seen him for a couple of years - based in good ol' Budapest innit.

[jean]

I'm all for authentic pronunciation but am prepared to make an exception for the philosopher, Kant.

Surely that's only dubious if you're used to a very old-fashioned pronunciation of English vowels?

[french frank]

Though sometimes the problem with pronouncing names 'correctly' is that the person you're talking to doesn't grasp who you mean - presumably why some choose to adjust the pronunciation of their own name to fit the way it's commonly pronounced. M. Hamelin now prefers his as in Hamelin town, in Brunswick, by famous Hanover city.

[Richard Tarleton]

Indeed. In contrast, the two buffoons in the centre of the Clare team were a bad advert for the place...

I only caught up with this last night after returning from a royal progress of the West Country...I didn't take against this team, I don't think someone doing a PhD in strategy and counter terrorism can be a complete buffoon, Cali ? He was presumably the "soldier" in the line-up, I wondered if his extrovert neighbour might be the actor but then again perhaps she (being a physicist) might have been the sci-fi geek....like a female member of my family she is clearly an expert on Japanese anime films ....that leaves the philologist. Either way, there have been others in this competition I've been gladder to see the back of....a pleasing contrast to the understated (and excellent) Warwick team, I thought.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

Though sometimes the problem with pronouncing names 'correctly' is that the person you're talking to doesn't grasp who you mean - presumably why some choose to adjust the pronunciation of their own name to fit the way it's commonly pronounced. M. Hamelin now prefers his as in Hamelin town, in Brunswick, by famous Hanover city.

Ah, yes, but Hamelin town in Brunswick is pronounced (and spelt) 'Hameln'. My father made that mistake when he tried to book a train ticket to that town in 1958.

[Nick Armstrong]

a PhD in strategy and counter terrorism

[Richard Tarleton]

You couldn't make it up

[visualnickmos]

Is the "s" not more like our "sh", as in "keep quiet"?

So it must be 'tom-ash va-sha-ry'

(the equivalent to an English 's' in Hungarian is formed by 'sz')

[Serial_Apologist]

So it must be 'tom-ash va-sha-ry'

(the equivalent to an English 's' in Hungarian is formed by 'sz')

As in my dear friend Krysztina...