[HPforGrownups] Re: Sirius and Snape/ US/English versions

[Edblanning at aol.com]

No: HPFGUIDX 34456

In a message dated 01/02/02 11:41:02 GMT Standard Time, lucy at luphen.co.uk 
writes:

> Erm, just to prove that British people can also be ignorant about other 
> cultures, what's a jumper in North America??
> 
> Lucy the Drifty
> 

It's what we'd call a pinafore dress. One of the things I discovered along 
with the fact that suspenders and overalls are dungarees, vests are 
waistcoats etc.

Oh, and another note to North American English speakers. Jumper isn't slang: 
jumper, pullover and sweater are all synonyms in British English. (Well, we 
need to wear them for so much of the year that we like to give ourselves a 
bit of variety by calling them different things!)

Something else, which to my shame I have only just noticed.
I'm afraid we English do tend to use the term 'English' when we should say 
'British'.It is a trait which many our transatlantic cousins seem to share.
This whole dicussion should be under the banner US/British versions. After 
all, they are both written in English, aren't they and it is extremely 
irritating to Scottish, Welsh and Irish Britons to be thought of as English. 
Having lived in Scotland as a child I am very aware of these sensitivities. I 
am also aware of a tendency to attribute specifically English cultural traits 
to the whole of the Kingdom. For instance, someone mentioned the Anglican 
Church being the national church since the reformation, when in fact the 
established church in Scotland ( the Church of Scotland) is Presbyterian. 
We British of course are similarly insensitive to North American differences. 
I do wish there was an easy way to refer to US citizens with out falling back 
on the innacurate 'American', which is what, of course we Brits do amongst 
ourselves. Similarly, I wish there was a brief way to refer to North American 
and British English. If there is, please tell me.

Amanda re Snape: 

>He does not expend the energy to grow and develop, unless he is forced 
to--why >should he? After the past it is hinted that he's had, probably damn 
little seems very >important, and the day-to-day sniping at students or 
rolling on with old grudges is >simply his "autopilot," the mode he functions 
in without thinking, and again, given >the past he has, he probably does not 
care to think too much. Perhaps he's *trying* >to let such trivialities be 
major again, to get away from the starkness and >substance of what he had to 
deal with before. 

This ties in with that nice theory someone had (sorry, still can't remember 
who it was) that Snape is a *reluctant* good guy, acting against character. I 
wonder if all this surface level nastiness is a safety valve, a release of 
the tension that being virtuous at a deeper level imposes on him. I like the 
geological analogies in your next post, Amanda:

 >You also assume that Snape *wants* to change. That's a heck of an 
assumption. I >submit that he already did, a hell of a lot, on a 
tectonic-plate level, and his current >nastiness is merely currents swirling 
the surface (with the occasional Shrieking >Shack volcano). 

Yes, what he does now is nothing compared to what he has seen and done in the 
past. I think those tectonic plates are still sliding around a bit. There's a 
lot of stress and tension down there and earth tremors are going to happen 
and volcanoes erupt now and  then.

There's been some discussion of Snape's ? loner status. Yes, I think there's 
some feminine bias here. We girls know the therapeutic value of talk, but 
chaps don't do it so much, do they? That whole Venus and Mars thing. I don't 
think we have any evidence that Snape *is* a loner. He had that band of 
Slytherins as a schoolboy, though what their relationships were, we can only 
guess. But now, who could he talk to on a personal level (even assuming he 
wanted to)?  There is no-one, even the near- omniscient Dumbledore, who can 
possibly know what he has been through, aside form the fact that most, if not 
all of it, is secret, anyway.

By the way, I feel that the Snape/ Sirius discussions of late have got a bit 
stuck on the schoolboy prank subject ( looking sheepish, as I think it was a 
throw-away remark of mine that brought it up again). If Snape was (as is 
often supposed) the one who warned Lily and James about Voldemort, he has 
also had thirteen years to store up resentment against the man that he thinks 
foiled his attempt to save them. He *does* think Sirius was the mole. He 
*does* want revenge for the murder he tried to prevent. The fact that he's 
also one of his worst childhood enemies is the icing on the cake. The fact 
that it was another of his worst childhood enemies that he was trying to save 
probably only makes it worse.

Eloise, who's recovered from yesterday's attack of hysteria, but is off to 
polish her Foe Glass, just in case.


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