[HPforGrownups] Arithmacy

[Doreen]

No: HPFGUIDX 14695






> And in PoA, Hermione gives up Trelawney's Divination class so she
can
> concentrate her entire attention on Arithmancy.
>
> Arithmancy sounds, to me at least, like a magickal way to deal with
> math.
>
> Anyone?

I assumed that Arithmancy is simply numerology-- the "-ancy" suffix
does mean magic. I can't remeber where I saw this in PoA, but there
was also mention of her textbooks, or some brief description of her
homework that soudned very distinctly arcane and magical.

The thing that threw me though was that Hermione said "It was my
father's favorite subject." But her parents are both Muggles, right??

Maybe one way of interprettijgn this is that the course does cover
aspects of higher math as well as the magic of numbers.

Thoughts?

Suzanne


>From the Dictionary of Difficult Words:

arithmancy
n. divination by numbers.

I am also interested in the fact that it was Hermione's father's favorite
subject, although, stranger classes are taught in universities.

Doreen