neat phrases from Kent Desormeaux

Doug Harris cats22 at FRONTIERNET.NET
Tue May 6 15:08:44 UTC 2008


The key to the answer is in the nickname
"The sport of kings".

The answer: Horse racing is a 'sport' like
gambling is 'gaming'. Or like 'playing the
(stock) market' is anything but a fool's game.
dh


Perhaps a related question: Horse racing is considered a SPORT (it's written
about in the sports pages of newspapers); but which is the ATHLETE--the
horse, the jockey, the owner?

--Charlie
_____________________________________________________________
---- Original message ----
>Date: Tue, 6 May 2008 06:19:56 -0700
>From: Jonathan Lighter <wuxxmupp2000 at YAHOO.COM>
>
>I've watched Animal Planet for so long that this usage seems perfectly
ordinary.  Furthermore, the "tragic" part might apply more to the owners of
the horse than to the horse itself.
>
>  But be that as it may.  Eveybody under the age of 115 should know by now
what my freshmen knew thirty years ago (Ow! There goes that durned lumbago
agin!), that a "tragedy" is just something that's very, very sad.   Like you
go, "Oh, no! That really sucks!"
>
>  JL
>
>Wilson Gray <hwgray at GMAIL.COM> wrote:
>
>Amen, Charlie.
>
>-Wilson
>
>On Mon, May 5, 2008 at 10:07 AM, Charles Doyle wrote:
>>
>> Speaking of the Kentucky Derby: In the media chatter (oral and printed),
the word "tragic" has undergone a further degradation of meaning. It is now
a TRAGEDY when a horse gets injured and dies--presumably making the brute a
tragic figure?
>>
>> --Charlie

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