Greatness / Language / Costumes

Sat Apr 9 22:47:10 UTC 2005

Geoff quoted in
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPFGU-OTChatter/message/26739 :

<< "One man's freedom fighter is another man's terrorist". >>

I just want to hasten to agree with you, because many people in the
world get outraged that the idea that anyone could possibly disagree
with them about which one is a freedom fighter and which one is a
terrorist.

GREATNESS

K Cawte wrote in
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPFGU-OTChatter/message/26736 :

<<  I don't really care how honestly he believed he was doing right I
believe he was doing wrong.  The calls to rename him John Paul the
Great just make me want to throw up in disgust >>

But historical characters are called "the Great", like Alexander the
Great and Catherine the Great, because of their impact on history, not
because of their ethics, morals, or goodness. I personally don't have
a problem with anyone saying that Hitler and Stalin were 'great.
Terrible, yes, but also great' (like Voldemort). (Altho' I do have a
problem -- that is, am shocked at myself -- for comparing my notion of
Greatest Evil (that is, Hitler and Stalin) to petty puny Voldemort.) 

K Cawte wrote in
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPFGU-OTChatter/message/26741 :

<< My point was that standing up for what you believe in does not in
and of itself make you a great person.  I might stand up and say I
believed the moon was made of green cheese and be willing to stick to
that point of view no matter how much I was ridiculed. But no matter
how sincere I was it wouldn't make me great - just an idiot. A
well-intentioned and sincere idiot possible, but an idiot all the
same. >>

This gets into the question of what it means to be 'great'. Two
suggestions that match the late Pope are that it means a person who
had a big impact on history, or a person who displayed talents,
energy, charisma, stubborness far beyond the average human; neither of
those require the great person to be virtuous nor factually accurate. 

Another suggestion is that it means a person of great sincerity and
moral courage, which could mean the person who dedicated their life to
lunar green cheese in your example, depending on how much they
demonstrated their moral courage ('moral courage' = stubbornness plus
willingness to suffer) by how much they suffered for it. I can imagine
an obituary for such a person, saying that it was a pity that he had
lived his life in destitution (and unknown outside the local
neighborhood) as a lunatic street haranguer rather than putting his
natural greatness to serve some more worthy goal than the Moon being
made of green cheese.

Geoff wrote in
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPFGU-OTChatter/message/26732 :

<<  I believe that God can use weak people, unbelieving people and
flawed people to carry out his purposes. >>

And JKR can use Peter Pettigrew to carry out her purposes, but that
doesn't make Peter great.

I agree with your previous sentence about a person can be great
despite having great flaws, but not that whether a person has a place
in carrying out God's purposes has anything to do with whether that
person is great. 

Is it okay if I switch from 'carrying out God's purposes' to my
previous phrase of 'having an impact on history' to reduce arguments
about what God actually intended? Sometimes very minor, even venial,
people do one act which has a big impact on history, in the 'for want
of a nail, a country was lost' style, like someone who sells a
password to the enemy for a bribe, or someone who just accidentally
overhears conspirators conspiring and reports them. 

In my not so humble opinion, such people are not made great by the
impact of their one action.

LANGUAGE

<< In the war if the Dutch resistance suspected a new recruit of being
a German infiltrator they would swing the conversation round to the
point where the suspect had to pronounce Scheveningen. A non-native
*never* gets this right and in that particular case, this would lead
to acute lead-poisoning =o/ >>

That's in the Bible: shibboleth

Storm wrote in
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPFGU-OTChatter/message/26868 :

<< do you ever think ME-shell Norris (from NPR) >>

Yes.

Mary Ann wrote in
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPFGU-OTChatter/message/26874 :

<< Cloudt is my maiden name and the "d" is silent. >>

I used to read your old sn, macloudt, as MacLoudt.

Geoff wrote in
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPFGU-OTChatter/message/26880 :

<< I used to say to my pupils that in order to pronounce the words
properly, I would allow them as a privilege to stick their tongues out
at me. Because that will get the "th" sound correct; it then only
remains to know whether to use this unvoiced or voiced and it
certainly avoids the "z" or "d" which often betrays a continental
speaker. >>

Or the 'd' betrays a Brooklyn speaker ('dis, dem, doze').

Can you explain voiced and unvoiced in such a way that I understand
it?

My friend Regina is Filipino even tho' she's lived in US since a young
age. She can't say TH; she has a good friend whose use-name is Theo,
but she has been told to call him Ted because the other kept coming
out Teo. So I tried to tell her how I used to be unable to say TH,
even tho' kids kept mocking me and my mother kept scolding me for
saying F instead ('fird' grade and 'brovver') . While I was in third
grade, I somehow learned that TH comes out if I carefully place the
point of my tongue on the bottom of my front teeth (which I guess had
to come in for this to work) while saying F. But Regina claims this
advice doesn't help her because she claims that she also can't say F,
altho' I'm sure I've heard her say F.

COSTUMES

Imamommy wrote in
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPFGU-OTChatter/message/26879 :

<< These are my favorites, of the patterns I could get readily at my
local fabric store: (snip) which of these seem to you all like the
witchiest of the bunch? >>

If you LOVE one that your local store doesn't have, maybe you can
mail-order or e-order it. 

I vote A BIG NO on
http://simplicity.com/designFrame.cfm?designId=10688&design=9531 as
anything witchy except Pansy's dress robes (described only as pink
with ruffles). The title of the costume is Renaissance Dresses but all
those Empire waists (i.e. waistline no lower than the bottom of the
bust) is at most Regency ladies' Renaissance costumes for a fancy
dress ball (I used to be a big consumer of Regency Romances). I say,
use this pattern ONLY for real-life bride and bridesmaid dresses, not
for costumes. Thank you for letting me rant.

To me,
http://simplicity.com/designFrame.cfm?designId=11556&design=4940
doesn't look too Elvish, altho it DOES look a bit flat-chested (as a
somewhat talented seamstress, you will measure, and alter if
necessary). It might do for dress robes (altho' boringly dignified
dress robes in the dark fabrics and discreet trims depicted), or for
McGonagall's teaching clothes in less rich sturdy fabric with a
high-necked white shirt underneath, which you might be able to make
out of the V-neck fill-in shown.

To me,
http://store.sewingtoday.com/cgi-bin/butterick/sho
p.cgi?s.item.B4050=x&TI=10013&page=4
is the most wizarding looking of the ones you listed. Altho' I
disagree with Steve bboyminn about hoods. To me, only the cloaks have
hoods, not the robes, not even the student uniform robes. The latter
have plain pointy hats instead.