Questioning the Lexicon yet again: Marauder's Map

[hp_lexicon]

No: HPFGUIDX 85073

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "yolandacarroll" 
<yolandacarroll at y...> wrote:
> 
> "Marauder's Map" is singular, but like you said whomever referred 
to 
> it would be using it to "maraud" and would therefore be, for the 
> moment anyway, a "Marauder".
> Since it is safe to assume that all four of them used the map at 
some 
> point, we know that they were all "marauders" at some time.
......
> singular.  I admit to missing that, however, I think my 
> rationalization actually fits.

Not really, no. The reason fans have come up with the idea of 
using "The Marauders" for James and his friends is because they 
think of the name of the map saying "this map belongs to a specific 
group of people who go by the name of The Marauders." That is not 
what the name of the map is. So no, your rationalization doesn't 
fit. The fact that, when James and his friends made the map, they 
may have named it assuming that whomever used it would use it for 
marauding doesn't translate into their group having that proper 
name. That doesn't logically follow.

However, and this is very important, I'm not trying to say that 
there is anything wrong with fans using that name for the group. It 
isn't canon, true, but it's extremely handy. I do think it's 
unfortunate that so many fanfiction authors who pride themselves on 
sticking with canon as much as possible, make this error. But it's 
easy to see how the error happened and quite frankly, it's a term 
everyone understands and is used to, so what's the harm.

But it is not canon. It's a fan invention.

Steve
The Lexicon