Summer Weather / monolingual / Questions for JKR

[davewitley]

Tempted to change the subject line to Ritathon.

Rita wrote:

> Why don't they build drainages to lead the water to impoundments 
so it
> can be stored in reservoirs to be used in the summer?

Building a reservoir is a major undertaking with big implications 
for the local population, not least if their houses, farms etc are 
to end up underwater.  The local economy and ecology are affected, 
and even if it eventually goes ahead plans to build one are rightly 
subject to rigorous public scrutiny which usually takes years.  In 
many parts of the country it's hard to envisage where a reservoir 
could be located.

> Eloise asked in
> http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPFGU-OTChatter/message/21467 :
> 
> << two places called Wrotham and Trottiscliffe. Care to guess their
> pronunciation? >>
> 
> Plain wild guess: Rome and Triffid.

Wrotham is a hard one, unfair on Americans.  I can think of six 
legitimate sounding pronunciations of this, of which four are quite 
plausible.  I have no idea which is right, and if there is another 
Wrotham elsewhere in the country it could quite easily be pronounced 
differently.  Trottiscliffe is IMO easy and I will let you all go on 
guessing.

In Northumberland there is a town called Bellingham, pronounced 
Bellingjum; not far to the south, in Teesside, there's a town called 
Billingham, pronounced Billing-um.  There's no system to this: you 
just have to know it.  There are three pronunciations of the surname 
Waugh: to rhyme with cough, law and loch.

> I can understand how SeveNOaKS
> became Snooks,

You wha...?  I've never heard it pronounced anything other than 
Sevenoaks, i.e. as the number followed by the tree.  Eloise, you 
live down that way, don't you?  Some wily Brit was amusing himself 
at the expense of naive Americans, methinks.

In St Giles St in Oxford, there is a rather ornate memorial to the 
protestant martyrs (Cranmer etc) in the shape of a spire.  Next to 
it is an underground public toilet with steps leading down from the 
street.  It's a long established undergraduate prank to accost some 
gushing American tourist, ask if they want to see Oxford's 'famous 
sunken church', and point them at the steps down.  The trick may 
work with any ill-informed tourist, but traditionally some 
nationalities have been held to give more pleasure than others.

(The Cambridge prank against Japanese tourists would take us too far 
afield here.)

 but not quite how Featherstonehaugh became Fanshawe ...
> somehow that S traded places with the N ...  

Like 'ax' for 'ask'

> I (present imperfect tense of "to accumulate") 

am still accumulating

> 2) Why aren't Thunderbirds (aka Quetzalcoatls) in FANTASTIC BEASTS?

Because no-one was on Tracy Island when Newt called.  Next!

> 3) Are Boggarts (not in FB) Beings or Spirits? Are Dementors 
Beings or
> Spirits?

Or Beasts.  NS may not have caught 'em all.

> 4) Is the Ministry of Magic part of the Muggle government? If it's
> separate, how is the Minister of Magic selected?

Ministry *of* magic; Minister *for* magic.  Don't know why but it 
makes perfect sense when you consider that nearly every country has 
idiosyncratic names for government high office.
 
> At what age do witches hit the change
> of life? 

Is 'menopause' not a word in common use in the US?

> 16) Is Blaise Zabini a boy or a girl?

Boy.  He is *so* a boy.

> [OoP answered: Percy is not short for Percival]

And in general if someone British is called Percy I'd say the 
presumption is that it is not short for anything. 

> 26) Did the Slinkhard DADA textbook demonstrate what you, Ms. 
Rowling,
> think of non-violence in real life Muggle situations?

Excellent question that.

David