The Romance

[cubfanbudwoman]

SSSusan:
> What I reacted to -- and called your opinion -- is that I read your
> previous comments as saying, AS ABSOLUTE FACT, that there is no way 
> those hours were missing, as in there was no reason in the world to 
> consider that they might contain something mysterious or 
> significant. And I was trying to point out why, for many people, it 
> was quite reasonable to think that there was! They were left 
> unexplained, and it seemed like a goodly chunk of time to a lot of
> us [that's where the opinion comes in, to me], so it wasn't weird 
> or crazy to have thought there might be some clues there in a 
> series which, at many levels, was a mystery.
> 
> Siriusly Snapey Susan,
> who doesn't mind having her position challenged or questioned, 
> especially when we're trying to figure out if we're talking about 
> things in the same or different way, but who'd appreciate not 
> having her words called "nonsense"


md:
> Well, there is no way those hours are "missing" they are simply not
>  covered in the book. My OPINION is no such thing, it's an ABSOLUTE 
> FACT. Sorry, but I teach English, I teach reading, those hours are 
> not missing. To classify them as such there would have to be an 
> instance of two events occurring directly after each other but the 
> times or dates being out-of-sync with the amount of time it should 
> take. 
> 
> For example, had she written "I grabbed him right after it happened 
> and flew him directly here" yet there was 21 hrs between the two 
> events, then there's missing hours, now there's something to go, 
> wtf about. 

SSSusan:
Indeed, that would've been something to go "wtf" about.


md: 
> If people are going to argue how the book is writing with language 
> that does not match their argument, then that is nonsense. It would 
> be like saying "you don't talk so good."

SSSusan:
I'm afraid I'm not following what you are saying here, so I can't even respond whether that is what I was attempting to do or not.  I didn't argue that JKR didn't write in a way to include my "argument;" I expressed disappointment that something I'd hoped was going to mean something ended up:  1) not meaning something [just standard fan "shucks!"]; and 2) not even registering on JKR's "Well, yes, I thought about that" meter.

To get back to your other points, I could talk about my having been a high school teacher as well, and the fact that I'm an elected school board member, but honestly, that seems neither here nor there to me.

The main point I was attempting to make was that the phrase "the missing 24 hours" was a long-standing one which has been widely used as a common term at the HPfGU lists; that there was a conception of that time period which was discussed a lot and which existed *with* that phrasing.  

If it had not already been commonly accepted as the means of identifying that time period, perhaps a better term would have been "the *unexplained* 24 hours."  If I'm reading you right, you'd much prefer that... and truth be told, I think it WOULD be a fairer term to have used than "missing."  

But, when I entered this discussion, I was latching onto the old concept/theorizing, not really intending to argue the fact that the word "missing" was the best possible word in the English language to have used.  There simply was *mystery* surrounding that time period, which many of us found intriguing, and we were surprised to discover that JKR did not view it the same way.  

Call it "missing" or call it "unexplained" or call it some other word, it was the rationale for the *possibility* of something significant that could have happened in the time period that I was arguing for, not the terminology.

I've already said that I believe I misread your statement as saying there was no way it was reasonable to have expected something significant could have happened during that time, when I think you were simply saying that "missing" isn't a good way to describe the time period.  So now that we know we weren't talking about the same thing, really, it'd be nice to not have my view (that there was a possibility that something significant could have happened then) be labeled "nonsense."  Fair enough?

Siriusly Snapey Susan