Rowling's Roster System (Was: Re: "Good Slyth" (was: stereotypes)

[alice_loves_cats]

No: HPFGUIDX 57680

Jo Serendust wrote:

> Actually the screen grabs only show the top and bottom halves of the 
> same page.  You are right that the empty circle=female, filled 
> box=male is consistent for this one page.  I just have a hard time 
> believing that JKR needs to use one entire column to keep track of 
> the genders of the student.  Except for the androgynous Blaise Z. 
> and *possibly* Tracey Davis, their respective sex is apparent from 
> their names. It just seems to me that these symbols must be more 
> significant than that.

Alice writes:

Actually I thought of a possible (though maybe not all too probable)
reason for there being a column for the gender of the students... as
far as we know there seem to be about 5 girls and 5 boys in each house
in each year (there is, of course, the old debate about the number of
students in Hogwarts...) - when constructing these classes it might
have been useful to keep track of how many girls/boys JKR had so far
"invented". 

Although this is at least a *reason* (because otherwise surely one
would know the gender of a student, as Serenadust points out, directly
from the name), it's not a very strong one. But I myself occasionally
keep track of things with little symbols just to make things simpler.
It's easier to find the girls quickly if there's a symbol.

Love, Alice