Amanda Rants Again

[Amanda Lewanski]

No: HPFGUIDX 24240

To those list members under 18 (or under the mental age of 18): Listen
up.

Our name is HP for Grownups. That's not because we dislike children.
It's because we are grown up. The majority of us are legally adults,
working professionals and/or parents, who all have an interest in good
literature and enjoy discussing it. And by discussing it, I mean not
only delving into the details of the story and unearthing possible
mistakes (like the "why didn't Lupin transform before the moon came out"
line). I mean exploring the grand themes under the work, the meanings
these books may carry, how these themes relate to our own experiences,
what these books bring to people, the interesting question of the
extreme reaction of some religious groups, and various spinoff lines of
merit that are either on or off Chatter, depending on whether they
ultimately have to do with Harry Potter.

Please pick up, in the above, on the word "parents." Lots of us are.
Lots of us are teachers, too. We are a tolerant and thoughtful group,
and tease each other about typos and misspellings. We have lots of
listmembers whose first language is not English, and I can invariably
never tell it from their command of the language; they amaze me.

However, what we do *not* want to read is long rambling blocks of words
with no punctuation (that's periods ["dots" for those of you in the
computer generation], commas, question marks, etc.). We like the
convention of capital letters at the start of sentences, and lowercase
for the rest of it. We like complete sentences, grouped into paragraphs.
And we like substance, posts that discuss the books, not posts that
advertise somebody's cool new website (there's a list for that,
HPFGU-Announcements, post there) or to say "Hi" to each other.

We don't mind reading questions we've seen before. We understand that
brilliant new thoughts occur to readers at different times, and if you
thought of it, it's still brilliant and you'll want discussion. THAT is
what this list is for, to let you bounce your ideas off other readers
and explore the responses. And it's great fun when somebody has a brand
new take on an old question (which *does* still happen).

So please, you younger ones, you 12- to 15-year-olds who *act* like it,
there are simply *scads* of Harry Potter groups that are built for your
age group and interests and English usage. Seek those, please, unless
you want Parents and Teachers on your back.

That said, please let me add with all sincerity: For those of you who
feel that talking about Harry Potter with older Parents and Teachers and
other mature types is your kind of thing, that's wonderful, it really
is, and you're more than welcome to pull up a chair, grab a butterbeer
and jump into the conversation.

--Amanda. putting the clue bat down, out of breath, and wondering if
she's getting too old for this sort of exertion