combines replies and *long* on Quetzalcoatlus

[Catlady (Rita Prince Winston)]

Last night I came home from work an hour late ... not that I worked
late, just that I waited an hour longer than usual for my bus to
appear at my bus stop ... and was happily surprised to find a vase of
red roses awaiting me. Tim got me roses for Valentine's Day!

David Frankis wrote in
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPFGU-OTChatter/message/21472 :

<< There are three pronunciations of the surname Waugh: to rhyme with
cough, law and loch. >>

I have a friend named Lyndon Baugh, pronounced "ba" as in "bah,
humbug". I used to know a Sean Haugh, pronounced "huff" (which may be
close enough to "coff" in your  Apparently, "slough" is "sluff" when a
snake sloughs off its old skin, and "slew" when it's a protected
wetland, altho' I thought the latter was pronounced with the vowel of
"ouch".

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

It is a word (and topic) in *such* common use in USA that I resent it
as a cliche.

Phil COUSIN(s) cleverly wrote:

<< A COUSIN has a natural tendency to be COnfUSINg >>

which deserves a forbidden "LOL" response.

Pippin appended in
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPFGU-OTChatter/message/21516 :

<< Does Harry still need to study Occlumency, or is Voldemort now
permanently banished from his mind? >>

Harry might need to study Occlumency to keep Snape and/or Dumbledore
out of his mind, but would Occulumency ever have succeeded to keep
Voldemort out of his mind? Considering that Voldemort got into Harry's
mind through their special connection, not by use of Legilimency, it
seems reasonable to me that it wouldn't have been affected by defenses
against Legilimency.

Did Dumbledore believe that Occulumency would keep LV out of Harry's
mind, or was he just hoping it would, or was Dumbledore really
intending that either the Occlumency or Harry's reaction to Snape
teaching it would soften up Harry to LV's entries? Can anyone think of
a way to phrase *that* question to JKR? 

Amy Z wrote in
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPFGU-OTChatter/message/21531 :

<< As for the frequent appearance of a gap between African-Americans'
front top teeth, >>

I've never heard that particular stereotype. My ex the Brit had a gap
between his top front teeth; it must have been genetic as both his
daughter and his father had it. My friend quoted Shakespeare to him on
the subject of a gap between top front teeth indicates a lascivious
nature.

Steve bboy_mn wrote quite a few posts about 12 Grimmauld Place and
urban renewal. In
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPFGU-OTChatter/message/21532 he wrote:

<< Given the fact that it is hidden, government and land developers
could make plans for redevelopment without even realizing that 12
Grimmauld Place existed. The occupants of 12 Grimmauld Place would
probably be unaware of the redevelopment until the very day that the
bulldozers showed up, and then, magic or no magic, it would be too
late. >>

I gather that magic people can put things in spaces that don't take up
space in the Muggle world (e.g. the car's trunk bigger on the inside
than the outside, the whole Diagon Alley district in a pub's back
yard). If some magic people still owned the house and didn't want to
let it go, they could put it in one of the extra spaces, reached by a
secret entrance in the shopping mall, having arranged suitable
Confundus Charms on the architect and the construction workers that
they build the appropriate place for the secret entrance. The
residents of the mall-surrounded house would never have to go through
the mall to get in and out, as they have both Apparation and the Floo
system. I am dreaming of secret entrances ... on the back wall of the
ladie's room is a fresco of an Italian villa in its gardens, but the
painting of the villa's door opens to the hand of a witch ... ... the
elevator leading to an unpopular part of the parking structure has an
extra button visible only to magic folk ...

Joywitch wrote in
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPFGU-OTChatter/message/21563 :

<< anyone who names *all* of his kids after him is an idiot >>

Did he (George Foreman) name his daughter George, or just all four of
his sons? It would have been *more* idiotic to name the first three
sons George and then name the youngest something else to make him feel
left out.

I recall hearing of a fervant partisan of the banished Stewarts who
named all *eleven* of his sons Charles Stuart whateverhislastnamewas,
but didn't heara if he gave them each a unique *third* given name. 

Joywitch answered me in
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPFGU-OTChatter/message/21488 :

<< My guess would be because the quetzalcoatl is a real bird. I've
seen one. It was very beautiful. >>

Silverthorne Dragon replied to her in
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPFGU-OTChatter/message/21497 :

<< Quetzacoatyl is also the name of an Aztec god (AKA, the Feathered
Serpent) 
(snip)
The Thunderbird is a North American entity believed to be made of
Spirit and Thunder. They appear in the sky when Evil is around in
order to fight it--thier most common description is that they have
pale heads, silvery eyes that flare lightening, and dark bodies --
rather similar to the Northern Bald eagle, actually (A sacred bird in
its own right). You cannot summon a Thunderbird (They are considered
both a single entity as well as an entire race)--they will only come
to you if Great Spirit deems it necassary. >>

The bird *is* beautiful, it has iridescent green feathers, and some
Central American currencies have been named after it. The name is
"quetzal", which is where the "feathered" half of the "feathered
serpent" comes from. Btw IIRC "quetzal" is sometimes translated as
"precious" (because its feathers were worth more than their weight in
gold or silver or turquoise or cacao), as in the name of
Quetzalcoatl's sister Quetzalpetl "Precious Flower".

"Coatl" is often translated "cloud serpent"; it is a winged serpent
that flies and brings rainstorms. I believe that "coatl" and
"thunderbird" are the same entity: a divine flying creature with
feathers and a toothed beak who brings rainstorms with lightning and
fights evil. The god named Feathered Serpent is named after It/them. 

However, back in 2002, Boggles of HPfGU sent me an e-mail arguing that
quetzalcoatls (she said lowercase is the modern name for coatls) are
entirely different than thunderbirds: "It is generally agreed by
dragon fans that the quetzalcoatl is the draconic variant of the
Americas.  They are often associated with water, but it is more often
rivers or wells than rain per se."  *shrug* I disagree with those
dragon fans. To me, quetzalcoatls have feathers and dragons don't.

I have proper respect for the good god Feathered Serpent, but
spirituality and religion don't fit into the worldview of Fantastic
Beasts and Where to Find Them. In JKR's wizarding world, magic is just
a part of nature and magical beasts are just as biological as Muggle
beasts. It is in that spirit that I write of thunderbirds as a
species.

As do some of the modern people who believe in unscientific things and
believe that the Native American talk of thunderbird is based on
pterosaurs who survived in the Southwest and Mesoamerica long enough
to be seen by the first humans living there, long long long after the
paleontologists say they went extinct. A few people believe that the
last pterosaur in (I can't remember if it was Texas or New Mexico) was
killed in the 1930s. 

Fossils of a huge pterosaur were discovered in the Southwestern desert
and named Quetzalcoatlus northrupi. Quetzalcoatl after the Aztec name
of god Feathered Serpent (isn't he called Kukulcan in Maya?), sort of
a reference to the theories mentioned above, and northupi after the
Northup aerospace company, an ancestor of Northrup-Grumman, IIRC
because the pterosaur supported its large wings with a bone strut
similar to a steel strut that Northrup had invented. The Gossamer
Condor, Albatross, etc people built a lifestyle working model of the
pterosaur and it was flown in IIRC an IMAX movie.

Quetzalcoatlus northrupi and other pterosaurs are reptiles, not birds
(and not dinosaurs, but I can't remember why). 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quetzalcoatlus 
http://www.enchantedlearning.com/subjects/dinosaur
s/dinos/Quetzalcoatlus.shtml