[HPforGrownups] Digest Number 4215

[Darrell Harris]

No: HPFGUIDX 90337

Message: 1
   Date: Wed, 04 Feb 2004 22:16:26 -0000
   From: "justcarol67" <justcarol67 at yahoo.com>
Subject: Re: Question: Baruffio and the buffalo

> Neri:
I would have thought that the editors got it mixed up
as usual 
and it actually should have written "said `f' instead
of `s' ", but
what the @$#& is a "bussalo"??? Do we need a Latin
expert here?

 
Ravenclaw Bookworm:
According to the dictionary.com/translate page,
'bussalo' is Italian 
for 'it knocks'. <snip>
> 
> 
> Geoff:
> That assumes that the word "buffalo" was part of the
spell. I would 
> agree that to mix up 's' and 'f', it might have to
be in a different 
> language (such as Latin). <snip>

Carol:
I'm also assuming that the spell was in Latin, like
most spells in the
HP books. (Maybe "accio something-or-other"). I tried
looking up the
Latin for "buffalo" using an online English-to-Latin
dictionary and
came up with "bubalus." That would mean that Baruffio
meant to say
something like "accio bubaluf" and said "accio
bubalus" instead. But I
don't think that would work. "Bubaluf" is worse than
"bussalo."
Besides, he didn't just conjure up a buffalo by
mistake. It landed on
his chest! Also, IIRC, the letter "f" isn't all that
common in Latin
words (except possibly as a spelling to represent that
sound in words
borrowed from Greek containing the lieeter phi). It's
been a very long
time since I studied Latin, so I could be wrong.

I'm down to the theory that it was just a comic
example intended by
both Flitwick and JKR to illustrate the importance of
correct
pronunciation (much like the Diagon Alley/floo powder
example that
someone (I think Geoff) used in an earlier post.

Carol, who thinks the Baruffio story is hilarious
regardless of what
he was trying to say or do


   I don't know what  Bifon is but a yahoo search
returned a few hundred non english websites.

Bison by the way is the North American buffalo

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