Genes - Envy - Hermione's Birthday - Rant on Language

[Catlady (Rita Prince Winston)]

No: HPFGUIDX 26823

I mailed this last night at Thu, 27 Sep 2001 20:38:30 -0700 but the 
e-mail bounced.

vheggie wrote:

> 1) Assume it's a recessive allele so mm = wizard
> and MM & Mm = muggle. In order for two wizards
> to produce a squib a spontaneous mutation 
> must occur which 'knocks out' the action of
> one of the parental genes.  This sort of
> mutation is INCREDIBLY rare,

That wizardry is polygenic is logical, of course, but I'm a defender 
of the recessive allele theory. There are two other ways that a wizard 
and witch parent could have a Squib child: 1) Mama was messing around 
with a Muggle on the side, and 2) whatever developmental process is 
directed by the magic gene was disrupted by some environmental 
influence, such as Fetal Alcohol Syndrome, or Mama had the flu or too 
much stress hormones during pregnancy.  

fourfuries wrote:

> Thus, the jealous husband considers himself
> to be defending "his" territory, (snip)
> Envy, on the other hand, is a more dangerous
> thing, as it has no justification. 

Far more people agree with you than with the idea that my late mother
taught me a million years ago; she said that Jealousy means seeing 
that someone has something you want that you don't have, and spite 
fully wishing that they didn't have it either, but Envy means seeing 
such a person with such a thing and wishing that you had it TOO, a 
much more positive reaction.

Frances wrote of Hermione's birthyear:

> As a Brit, I have been in the education system
> over here all my life, and ended up coming
> down on the side of 1979 because 1st of September
> deadline has always been strictly observed over
> here as the cut off point for when people change 
> schools

I believe that Hermione was born in 1979 because my Web searching on 
the subject of British education found several sites indicating that 
the September cut-off is strictly observed (as you stated) and none
indicating that it isn't. I'll even accept it as a reason why she is
such a mature student. But plenty of Americans on the list are
determined to have her be younger than Harry, and make suggestions 
like Hogwarts has a later date cut-off than Muggle schools do.

Rowena Grunnion-Fitch wrote:

>  sometimes I'm very grateful to be a 
> native English speaker - other languages
> sound so *complicated* with their genders
> and tenses and God knows what else.

Your explanation that the simplification of English came from a cross 
between Saxons and Danes is new to me; I am more accustomed to the
explanation that 'English is the result of Norman men at arms trying 
to date Saxon barmaids, and no more legitimate than the other 
results." I THINK the quote is from L. Sprague deCamp but I can't 
remember.

My friend Lee (ABD in Eng Lit) told that the reason that English 
became simple and easy is because it was the language only of 
conquered peasants and therefore not taught in school like Latin (and 
presumably Norman French) and was therefore free to change according 
to the same natural principles that let Latin turn into French and 
Spanish and Italian and Rumanian etc. IIRC she said Saxon nouns were 
declined (like Latin or Russian) but the part that changed was the 
last syllable and was unstressed so people with sloppy slangy 
pronunciation just left them off, same as modern people with sloppy 
slangy pronunciation leave the 'g' off 'ing' verbs and leave the 't' 
off 'don't'. 
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