HP translations- the name 'Hogwarts'

[eloise_herisson]

No: HPFGUIDX 109569

Sandra:

> I have checked the HP Lexicon and it says:
> "The name "Hogwarts" is actually the name of a flower. JKR 
> said: "Ideas come from all sorts of places and sometimes I don't 
> realise where I got them from. A friend from London recently asked 
me 
> if I remembered when we first saw Hogwarts. I had no idea what she 
> was talking about until she recalled the day we went to Kew Gardens 
> and saw those lilies that were called Hogwarts. I'd seen them seven 
> years before and they'd bubbled around in my memory. When Hogwarts 
> occurred to me as a name for the school, I had no idea where it 
came 
> from." (SMH) "


I hesitate at present to suggest that perhaps JKR made a mistake 
here...;-) Well, not exactly a mistake as such.

Although I have no doubt that the sound of the name stuck in her mind 
from this encounter at Kew, in fact the flower is spelled "Hogwort", 
not "Hogwart" (and therefore pronounced "hogwurt"). "Wort" is a 
common flower name suffix and is simply Middle English for "plant". 
Clearly this punned itself with "hog" and "wart" in her mind.

The other name for it is the Woolly Croton and it actually hails from 
the US (Edwards Plateau and South Texas Plains).


For information on the flower, go to:

http://www.herbage.info/tej/files/H408.htm#18

~Eloise