Naming Puns (was Re: The Grim?)

[Geoff Bannister]

No: HPFGUIDX 95217

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "khilari2000" <hannah at r...> 
wrote:

Khilari:
 
> I didn't realise that one was a pun, please explain it to me.
> 
> Khilari - who still likes obscure puns, but sometimes needs them 
> explained.

Geoff:
We had a thread on puns and other word "games" but I hadn't realised 
how long ago it was...

The following quote is from message 75840 which led into a discussion 
on JKR playing on words (sound familiar?):

`Diagon Alley is from "diagonally" - you notice HP calls it that in 
the COS film when he uses Floo powder at The Burrow, Knockturn Alley
is from "nocturnally".

Durmstrang is quite a clever one. There was a style of drama and art -
Beethoven was an exponent - called "Sturm und Drang" = storm and
stress. JKR has spoonerised this to get the school name. Beauxbatons
also means "lovely wands". 

JKR is quite clever and mischievous with her names. I can imagine her 
sitting, tongue in cheek, thinking "what name can I think up to amuse 
the observant?"'

****

If you do not know, spoonerising is one of those delightfully English 
idiosyncratic occupations. It takes its name from the Oxford 
professor Rev. W.A.Spooner (1844-1930) who was renowned for making 
spoonerisms. It is an error in speech (or nowadays more often a 
humorous misuse) when the initial letter or letters of a couple of 
words are transposed. An example of Spooner's mishaps was when, on 
one occasion, it seems that he was proposing a toast to Queen 
Victoria and meant to say "Bless our dear old Queen" and instead came 
out with "Bless our queer old Dean" which caused both great laughter 
or extreme irritation (queer being a UK euphemism for gay). I 
occasionally end a message with "the thick plotens" as a humorous 
alternative for "the plot thickens"