1960s - Weasley Names - wizarding superstore - Age 40

[Catlady]

John, you never reply when I tell you that Araminta is NOT a 1960s name,
it's an 1860s  name. As you're writing a time-travel story, were Minty's
parents influenced by their visit to EIGHTEEEN-sixty?

I suspect the short names by which we know the Weasleys are in most
cases their given names, not nicknames. (I heard that there was a club
named The Society of the Unbroken Name, for people who hated to be
called by a nickname, when three people I knew said they had joined it.
Their birth certificates said Vicki, Tony, and Tony, not Victoria,
Anthony, and Antoinette. That is evidence that some parents give
'nicknames' as given names.)

For Ron, we have evidence that his name IS Ronald, as Dumbledore said
"Ronald Weasley, who has always been overshadowed by his brothers". That
completely ruins any theory of the names being in alphabetical order
because Ronald does NOT begin with H.

(How convenient it would have been if we could have said that Ron is
short for Heron. I once had a theory of alphabetical order of
consonants: Bill, Charlie, D. Percy, Fred, George, Heron, Jennifer
Juniper. To do it with consonants, you have to start with Arthur and
assume a dead Weasley for letter D, but you get the advantage of calling
Ginny "Imogen" or "Iphigenia". Hey, the latter fits her plot in CoS: the
rescued sacrifice!)

The same evidence, what Dumbledore says: "I believe your friends Misters
Fred and George Weasley were responsible for trying to send you a toilet
seat" shows that Fred isn't Frederick.

My own guess is that Bill is short for Bilius, possibly named after
Uncle Bilius who died when he saw a Grim, Ron is Ronald, and the rest we
know by their given names.

Ebony wrote:

> If there was a wizarding version of the American superstore
> (Super Wal-mart, Super K-Mart, Meijer's, etc.), what would it sell?

I've already invented a business named Kitchen Witchery, founded by
Pansy Parkinson's grandfather, and now run by her aunt,

(Pansy's father, in my world, started his own business that he likes
better: a hot-shit nightclub on Seezon Alley (hi, Heidi!) and a resort
hotel)

which makes enchanted gourmet cookware and kitchenware. The business has
several classy retail specialty shops (in Hogsmeade, Diagon Alley,
southern France, Paris, Italy) and also wholesales to classy restaurants
and hotels. Super Wiz-Mart could sell cheap imitations under the name of
Parkerson and Kitchen Witchy-poo.

The other night. I thought Kitchen Witchery might also make tableware:
the enchanted serving platter that wafts around the table from diner to
diner, the enchanted serving fork that puts food from the platter onto
the plate of the diner whose turn it is, the enchanted wine carafe that
can be programmed to cut down on the refills of people who are starting
to have too much fun...

The superstores have a garden section. Imagine the Herbology plants
carrying on in a store. And potions to make vegetables grow faster or
bigger, and self-weeding mulches, and numerous anti-gnome gimmicks: that
sings out of key whenever a gnome is around, but unfortunately gnomes
are tone-deaf and not chased off...

I invented another business. Comfort & Joy was founded almost two
hundred years ago by two sisters, Alexandra Powers Comfort and
Wilhelmina Powers Joy, who started by making shampoo potions that were
both effective and pleasant-scented.

They started by brewing the potions in Billie's kitchen and selling them
at witches' tea parties in Allie's house, increased their product line,
built a factory with employees and an attached retail shop (at which
time they had to name it) to compete with all the wizarding shops they
wholesale to, and left the business to their children, who further
diversified the product line.

The Comfort & Joy brand-name product Heal-Quick has become the generic
name for enchanted bandages-- which are enchanted not only to adhere, to
somewhat adjust their size and shape to fit better, and to come off
PAINLESSLY, but to be sterile, microbicidal, and promoter of speedy,
scarless healing.

Ebony wrote:
> Although I think I *did* agree with the above theory sometime and
somewhere

In TiP (was it episode 9?), when Angelina visits the Diamond Dinosaur
and reflects that  -"-everyone knows that witches are at their best
between 40 and 60-"- . I enjoyed sharing your fantasy that wizarding
folk fancy ripe minds as well as ripe figures, but I also noted that
wizarding folk age slower than Muggles, and between 40 and 60 for
witches might be like maybe between 25 and 35 for Muggles. Still a
pleasant contrast to our dominant culture's notion that women are only
attractive from 18 to 25.

>  "No, because 24 messes up the rhyme... but then, we
> wouldn't expect a little kid who was born after everything
> happened to understand that."

We have to make a different rhyme ... four-and-twenty candles, one per
blackbird baked into a cake?

I am bothered by so many people nowdays thinking that I was around when
things were happening. AROUND, yes, but not INVOLVED: I've mentioned
that I didn't know what 'assassinated' meant when JFK was assassinated,
and I never noticed the Civil Rights thing while it was going on (I feel
so humbled by my older friends who did go to register voters in
Mississippi). I can add that I never heard of Woodstock while it was
happening, not until I saw the movie in a revival house, and didn't
realize that the Watts riot were in the same city whose suburb I was
living in.

When you young people are old and tired and can't keep up with all the
changes that keep going on -- can't recognize the names of FAMOUS
musicians and actors and athletes -- have no idea how the new features
on the cell phone work, then you will be envious of the young people who
are up to date with all this stuff.
--
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