a post on the olympics

so the americans print a medal table where the team with the most medals of any type (i.e., the usa) is top and the chinese print one where the most gold medals gets counted first (we like them better because then britain is higher up). the aussies are busy dissing the brits, saying that they smell and are only good at sports where they get to sit down. some guy beat mark spitz's olympic medal record, etc., etc.

the big question i had, though, was: what is yngling and how do you pronounce it? thank you grauniad today for answering this. here is what they wrote:

"What is Yngling and how do you pronounce it?

Yngling is a type of keelboat, and easily the silliest of the 23 varieties of keelboat currently accredited by the International Sailing Federation, most of which sound like cast members of the Gladiators - Tempest, Lightning, Dragon, Melges 24. OK, the last one doesn't sound like a Gladiator. Its Norwegian inventor designed it for his son in 1967 and named it Yngling, Norwegian for young man. This is its second appearance in the Olympics, where it is raced only by women - the men's keelboat is the more gladiatorial Star. A spokeswoman from the Norwegian embassy says the word "is slightly old-fashioned now" but confirms that it is pronounced erngling, with the initial Y sounding like a German U with an umlaut. "It's not really a word we use a lot," says a colleague. "