Theres a lot of negativity that goes around these forums… but I just want to know what the correct spelling is. I always used lunge, but the amount of other versions I have seen are making me question my sanity :lol:
(mostly for humor as my work day is slow - entertain away!)
I think that “Longe” is more American spelling and “Lunge” is more a British spelling. Lounge as a spelling is just wrong… :lol: unless you are “lounging” on a sofa or a chaise lounge - but nothing to do with horses!
5 Likes
Longeing and Lungeing have both been used for so long they they are both, I think “correct.” I use longeing, because I was always taught that the word comes from the French “allonger” - and it’s also the spelling in most old texts about training.
The two that would ideally disappear from use are “lounging” and “lunging” :lol:
3 Likes
Longe is a French term deriving from the word to tether. So it is work on a line or rope etc
https://mobile-dictionary.reverso.net/french-english/longe
But the word also is close enough to English “long” that it makes sense to think of it as working on a long line.
I expect if the word wasn’t similar to an English word we wouldn’t have borrowed it (ramener anyone?)
But the French longe pronounced by English speakers does sound like “lunge.”
So like many borrowed words, it undergoes some transformation in its adopted language.
Also, French words weren’t designed to have ing added. So if you write “longeing” it doesn’t really follow English grammar rules. But if you write “longing,” that’s a totally different word.
Thats why many people end up writing “lunging” which is indeed an accurate description of how many horses do behave on a longe.
But then they look at that and see it doesn’t seem correct, so they try “lounging” which is what my horse likes to do on the longe. Sometimes she even lies down and won’t get up.
In general when there is so much uncertainty about a word in current usage, it isn’t that everyone using it is wrong or stupid, but that there is something difficult about how the word fits into current usage. Especially true of foreign loan words that don’t really fit into English grammar.
How about a memnomic
Lunging and lounging are bad behavior on the long longe line.
Ok my whole long post went unapproved.
Because this is a loan word from French it doesn’t fit either grammar or pronunciation patterns in English.
But it is close enough to the English word long that it’s been adopted. Other French terms that have no similarity to English don’t get adopted (ramener anyone?). Longe is close enough to English “long” that it makes sense to borrow the word to refer to work on a long line or rope.
The closest English pronunciation to longe is lunge, and that’s what many horse do on the longe!
French words weren’t meant to take an ing suffix.
So longeing looks wrong to English eyes. But longing is another word altogether. So people try to change it up to lounging or lunging.
Loan words are often tricky thus way and when there is this much trouble incorporating a key term consistently it doesn’t mean people are stupid or illiterate but that there’s a problem with how the word fits into the language that borrowed it. Speaking as an English professor that marks first year papers but also thinks about how the language has evolved over centuries!
My horse definitely lounges on the longe. And sometimes lies down and won’t get up. Some horses are longing for their buddies and lunging around.
So:
Lunging, lounging, and longing are not allowed on the longe line!
6 Likes
As a transplanted Brit, lunging is what I have always done, always will…never longe, and no couches provided so lounging - not an option.
Lol, because i’m still I’ll, and feeling cranky…
I get saddle blankets, but when horses get dressed for cold or wet weather they don rugs, their owner rug them up…
When asked to pick up a halter, I’m looking for a string, rope, webbing, one size fits many, if it is leather, or flat nylon webbing, with buckles and clips it’s a headcollar…
1 Like
So if Im understanding correctly…
I am longing to sip on a cocktail, while lounging on a swivel chair while my horse is on the lunge line?
:winkgrin:
10 Likes
It seems like the consensus is you could be doing that OR you could be:
Longing to sip a cocktail while lounging on a swivel chair while your horse is lungeing on the longe line
3 Likes
Personal opinion: Lunge.
1 Like
Interesting solution in that it creates a word that does not exist otherwise in either English or French. It does approximate the French pronunciation, but it is a word form that doesn’t exist in English, especially if you extend it to be “lungeing.”
It may well develop in this direction, however. Many of our English words (beef, pork, etc) are Anglicized versions of old French words: the Normans named the meat, the Saxons named the farm animals which remain cow and pig. Makes it pretty clear who ate and who worked!
How do you figure that the word “lunge” does not already exist in English? https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/lunge
2 Likes
I’m phonetically challenged, so I’ve always preferred lunge/lungeing, as longe/longeing always just looked wrong to me in the way it should be pronounced - it looks too much like “long” to me, as in “I long for the good old days”. But that’s just a dyslexic phonetically challenged can’t spell person’s point of view. 
1 Like
4Leaf - this was my exact thoughts about this from the get go! It is interesting to learn of the backgrounds of some versions!
1 Like
Oh dear my my mistake. Of course it does. It’s lunge not lung!!
But still it is lunging, not lungeing. I think.
Too many first year papers over the weekend 
all my sense of spelling is gone.
Teehee! Hump day brain…I can relate.
I always use “lunge” and “lunging” since my phone doesn’t try to autocorrect either of those, and that is where I do most of my horse-related typing. 
I was taught the term was “longe” because “lunge” was something you did NOT want your horse to do. Lol!
1 Like
Well, I’m French and I don’t think the English « longe » comes from the French word « allonge » at all.
It think it must simply come from the French word « longe » which is the term we use to name the tool for longeing.
Une longe pour longer mon cheval.
A longe line to longe my horse.
Lunge came from « allonger », meaning to extend… So lunge line as an extended/extension line make sense, but not really « lunge » or « lungeing ».
But that’s me.
Lol, Wiki might be helpful, but also a little confused
A horse in training for equestrian vaulting at the halt on a longe line.
Longeing /ˈlʌndʒɪŋ/ (US English, classical spelling) or lungeing (UK English, informal US) is a technique for training horses, where a horse is asked to work at the end of a lunge line and respond to commands from a handler on the ground who holds the line.
So according that, longeing happens on a lunge line :lol:
Groundwork.
