[HPforGrownups] Re: anagrams, snape and animagi/ Paranoia and flying hedgehogs

[Margaret Dean]

No: HPFGUIDX 36043

Edblanning at aol.com wrote:
> 
> Dave replies to Mmgardin
> 
> >
> > m> I've also been thinking that avada kedavra might be part of an
> > m> anagram but I haven't been able to come up with anything yet.
> >
> > Neither was WordWeb (nothing even slightly meaningful,
> > anyway).
> 
> Sorry if this is simplistic, but isn't it simply a horrible distortion of
> abracadabra, the most innocent, childish expression of a spell, into the
> worst and most evil of all spells, via association with the word cadaver?

Other way about, actually.  From what I understand, "avada
kedavra" is Aramaic (?) for "let it be destroyed," and is the
=original= form of what was later garbled into "abracadabra" --
which was used, by the way, as a charm to cure illness, the
disease being the object of destruction.  I've seen pictures of
the word written out as a descending pyramid, a letter lopped off
the end on each successive line, like this:

A B R A C A D A B R A
 A B R A C A D A B R
  A B R A C A D A B
   A B R A C A D A
    A B R A C A D
     A B R A C A
      A B R A C
       A B R A
        A B R
         A B
          A

You wore this on a bit of paper and it was supposed to diminish
the illness as well.  Now, using this as a death spell -- that
=is= perverse, and just the sort of nasty idea Voldy would come
up with.


--Margaret Dean
  <margdean at erols.com>