Chapter Discussions: Chapter 3, the Advance Guard

[junediamanti]

No: HPFGUIDX 83236

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "Ali" <Ali at z...> wrote:
> First posted as message 76055:-
> 
>  Harry learns that Tonks is a Metomorphmagus and an auror who seems 
> to greet everyone with the East London term "Wotcher" although we 
> are given no other indication that she has a London accent, so this 
> phrase could just be an affectation or habit. We learn that being a 
> Dark Wizard catcher is the only career that Harry has ever 
> considered. [Authorial note: since writing, Stephen Fry has 
released 
> his audio version in which Tonks has a Lancastrian accent despite 
> saying "Wotcher" - the use of wotcher is still unknown to the 
author 
> outside of London].

Picky Brit comment:  It's a LANCASHIRE accent meaning coming from the 
now non-existent county of Lancashire in north west England (it 
housed Manchester and cites like that).  Lancastrian either pertains 
to the extinct royal dynasty that fought in the Wars of the Roses 
(1455-1485) or to the small town of Lancaster in the south of the 
English Lake District.  I therefore say Lancashire because that 
accent is distinctive.

June