Hello and various stuff

[Simon]

No: HPFGUIDX 8433

Well I guess I better start by saying Happy New Year. It must be a couple of
weeks since I last annoyed you all with a message, so decided it was time I
started again!


Apologies in advance if any of the answers or comments I make have already
been made, I have over 1000 messages from this group to wade through and
have not done so yet (not to mention some fan fic.). Also apologies about
the complete lack of structure to this message.



Penny wrote: "<light bulb goes on>:  Do you Brits call this subject "maths"
as short for mathematics???  I'd always wondered why you called it maths, as
though its plural.  Learn something everyday!"

Mathematics is plural as it a collective term, covering a wide range of
topics (such as geometry, arithmetic and lots of other equally boring
stuff). Technically it should be 'the mathematics', but in recent years the
'the' has been lost of the beginning. So it is the natural thing to also
make the shortened form plural as well. I could go on, but I guess you all
would get very bored with me very quickly.


Penny wrote: "FAQS -- The FAQ group is still hard at work!  We have given
some consideration to approaching a publisher about publishing them in a
non-web site format, but haven't made any real progress.
Yes .... close to 15,000.  You people are quite prolifiic (as if *I* haven't
contributed at all ... cough)!"

I am finding it hard enough to actually produce the things in the first
place without worrying about what we do after that! I have read through most
of those messages in my period of writing FAQ's, and if you ever want to
learn anything about your writing style (etc.) then going back and reading
messages you wrote a long time ago can be very amusing. Must be over 16000
messages by now!


Penny wrote: "DEAN THOMAS -- Dean Thomas is in Harry's year and should have
been sorted with the others, so if he wasn't sorted in the UK editions (not
going to the den to look), it's an error in that edition."

We only saw the sorting of a few people in PS not the whole year, and only
get told the houses of a few. The error seems to have entered in the
American edition. In this the detail is added in that Dean is black, and in
doing so the error over three / four people comes into the book (it says
three people left to sort when in fact there are four - may have changed in
later printings).



Simon