Wotcher WAS How Many DEs Left? Was:Dark SHIPS ( was Re: Possession)

[Ali]

No: HPFGUIDX 90956

sawsan wrote:-
>
> BUt what is what cheer? 
> > how is it used? is it similar to any american saying? 
> 
> Pip!Squeak:
> 
> It's 'cheer' in the sense of 'cheer up', or 'be cheerful'. The 
> extremely old fashioned phrase 'Be of good cheer' is also the same 
> sort of sense. And saying 'cheers' when you raise a glass *isn't* 
> shorthand for 'cheering loudly because I've finally got a drink' 
> [grin]. It's a wish that your fellow drinkers will be happy.
> 
> So 'cheer' is happy, optimistic. 'What cheer' means 'What's 
> happening that's good?' 
> 
> Personally, I think 'Wotcher' is a phrase Tonks has picked up from 
> her muggle-born dad, as it isn't used much these days. She's 
trying to be muggleish, but using out-of-date slang because the WW 
is so separate from the muggle world. Nowadays, it's more normal to 
> use 'cheers', mostly as slang for 'thank-you', or 'good-bye'.
 
Ali:-

I did try not to join in this thread, but in the end, I couldn't 
help myself.

I'm not sure how old fashioned "wotch'a" is. I used it a lot when I 
was growing up in London. It's a word I only associate with 
Londoners, and I stopped using it when I went to live in the North 
of England, and all my friends found the phrase hysterical.

It was always used as a greeting, synonymous with "How's it going". 
So instead of saying "hello" or "hi" or "how's it going" when I met 
someone, I'd say "wotch'a" (that was how I knew to spell it). I've 
no idea how much it is still used in Walthamstow (the part of London 
I come from). I'll have to find out, because it makes me feel very 
old having the word described as out-of-date!

One of my biggest disappointments with Stephen Fry's reading of OoP, 
was Tonks' accent. The accent he gives her, seems to place her 
around Lancashire, where I don't believe that phrase is used. I 
suppose it is possible that Tonks liked the phrase and added it to 
her vocabularly or the people I knew from Lancashire were simply not 
representative, and it is used in pockets of that county.

Ali

(Who really loves Stephen Fry's reading of the Harry Potter books 
with the one exception of Tonks' voice)