Troubles with the word, 'conjure'?

[Tammy Rizzo]

No: HPFGUIDX 56605

Okay, there have been several things said and questions raised this last day or so 
about wizards conjuring food and things, and from where does it come, and there 
seems to be some small confusion as to where in canon it says conjured items are 
temporary.  I don't know -- I'm not as well-read as some on this list, after all, and I 
never got my little piece of sheepskin to say I are smart, but maybe I can help clear 
up some of this confusion.

IIRC, it doesn't say anywhere in canon that conjured items are temporary.  JKR 
probably didn't feel the need to explain that conjured items are temporary, because 
the very word, 'conjure', has a very long, historical association with temporary 
things.  Conjured items have, throughout a vast majority of fantasy literature 
through the ages, been impermanent, doomed to vanish back into the thin air from 
which they were created.  Conjured items have almost always been illusions, though 
often illusions with weight, texture, taste, etc.  It's practically a given in fantasy 
literature that things conjured will soon disappear as if they had never been there in 
the first place.

I suppose it would have been nice if we'd overheard someone explaining the 
difference to Harry between things conjured out of thin air and things summoned 
from an actual place.  Heck, it might even have happened in an earlier draft and 
been cut in the editorial process, because, well, *everyone knows* that conjured 
things just aren't permanent.  The trouble is that, well, apparently, NOT everyone 
'knows' this.  Maybe some HP readers have never really delved into the depths of 
fantasy literature before meeting Harry, and therefore don't come to the WW with 
the same general understandings of those more immersed in the genre?

I suppose it would be something like using 'hyperspace' in a SF story.  Almost 
anyone who's dabbled even a little bit with reading SF has come across the word, 
'hyperspace'.  It's become a given concept in SF literature, as an end run around the 
(so far as we know and understand at this point in our explorations of physics) 
immuteable laws concerning travel at the speed of light.  Most SF writers don't even 
bother explaining 'hyperspace' -- why should they?  It's been explained so many 
times before, after all.

The same with conjuring, here.  It's been used so often in other things, and 
explained here and there in other works, myths, legends, etc.  Why should Jo have 
felt the need to explain such a 'well-known' concept?  I seriously doubt she ever had 
any inkling that so many people would be drawn into her WW who had never really 
been exposed to the fantasy genre enough to absorb the generally-accepted words 
ad phrases.  Perhaps that's an oversight that will be addressed in future books, as 
she addressed the pronunciation of Hermione, or perhaps not, as new fantasy 
readers, tired of waiting for OotP, begin to explore other fantasy works and learn 
more of the genre-specific terms on their own.

Anyway, that's my two knuts.  I hope this might have helped a little bit?  
***
Tammy
tammy at mauswerks.net