spelling. And Quidditch(ws Pronounciation??and spellingpolice

[Catlady (Rita Prince Winston)]

--- In HPFGU-OTChatter at y..., "ender_w" <ender_w at m...> wrote:
> Oh, I'm squirming here!  This whole thread started with the 
> spelling police pointing out that someone misspelled "trial" 
> "trail."  I belong to a Jack Russell list and two separate people
> wrote about taking their dogs to terrier trials-misspelling it  
> as "trails."

I don't know anything about terrier trials (do they fight specially 
chosen rats?) but I imagine that bloodhound trials would consist 
of trails.

Yesterday the latest ish of ARCHAEOLOGY arrived with a short news note 
of the discovery of a 4th century BC chariot burial in Yorkshire, in a 
village named Wetwang. Would it have to be named Wetwillie for Brits 
to understand my laughter? I'd love to put that village into the 
punfilled wizarding world: what character could be a 
Yorkshireman who could have come from there?

I was thinking about Quidditch. Even tho' we have been given this 
very British/English history of Quidditch as having begun at 
Queerditch Marsh and evolved in Britain before spreading to the 
world, surely there are other histories claiming it for other 
nations.

And it could SO WELL be claimed for Mesoamerica! The Muggle 
Mesoamerican ball game is SO like Quidditch -- no broomsticks, but 
there was an unpleasant Aztec goddess who flew on a broomstick and 
wore a black pointy hat -- as far as we know only one ball -- but the 
goal at each end is a hoop. That'[s enough to start the evolution, 
first byu adding broom sticks, then more goal hoops, then more 
balls... 

And I imagine that as good an explanation as any for a weird name 
like Quidditch is that it's an attempt to pronounce a word full of 
phonemesw that don't exist in English and Spanish, like atl and tz 
and x -- this game is gamed Quetzalcoatl-something because it was 
invented by Quetzalcoatl -- a Brit made a gallant effort to 
pronounce Que-gutteral-glottalstop-different guttural, and came 
up with Quich'll ich'll, of which Quidditch is MUCH easier to 
say.