[HPforGrownups] Name meanings: Arabella Figg/ Hagrid

[Richelle Votaw]

No: HPFGUIDX 44134

Eloise arrives just in time to tranform me back into a human again:


> Eloise, hearing a commotion from the classroom she is passing, finds
Richard
> (whose nerves I am becoming quite concerned about) bouncing a ferret on
the
> floor. Brandishing her wand and transforming the ferret back into an
> indignant Richelle, she demands an explanation:  [That's it. I'm not
really
> TBAYing, I just couldn't resist the image!]

<sniffle>  Thank you Eloise.  I am developing a bit of compassion for Draco.
Is that bad?  (sticks thumb in mouth, grabs security blanket and teddy bear
before continuing)

> Be fair to Richelle. She does realise that her etymologies are considered
> fanciful by Latinists (you do, don't you?) - hence banging her head on her
> desk.

Yes, and it also hinges on something else.  JKR herself not being a Latin
scholar (French teacher yes, Latin scholar, no), and since she is the one
who's come up with all of this, I simply don't see it as vital for
everything to be grammatically correct to make a nice story.  Take
Wingardium Leviosar (sorry if I spelled it wrong, I REALLY don't want to be
turned back into a ferret again), for example.  I haven't researched it
properly, but I think leviosar can be related to a lightness, but then wing
is thrown in there, completely unLatin.

> I think Richelle knows that her ideas are controversial and hasn't
pretended
> otherwise or indeed, that they are any more than her opinion.

Thank you for noticing, I AM very opinionated.  And I love creating
controversy. :)

GulPlum/Richard writes:

> Now, I admit that I'd never heard of a "Hagrid" in Greek mythology, so I
> was prepared to assume that I might not know as much as I thought.
However,
> no online source about Greek mythology
> (http://www.pantheon.org/areas/mythology/europe/greek/articles.html seems
> like a good place to start) seems to have heard of this character.

I think perhaps the same people who've started making up tales about Running
Weasel, a knight of King Arthur being killed or nearly killed or something
by a rat must be at work again.  At least I've never heard any such thing,
funny it should come up now. :)

Now, once again I'll venture I could be stupid again, but I always perceived
Hagrid to be a "play" on the word haggard.   Considering Hagrid doesn't
look, well, too spiffy.

Richelle

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"May it be a light to you in dark places, when all other lights go out."
---- Lady Galadriel, The Fellowship of the Ring
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