Snuffles' name/ Hufflepuff - a thought

[Wanda Sherratt]

No: HPFGUIDX 98272

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "Geoff Bannister" 
<gbannister10 at a...> wrote:
> 
> A completely separate thought arose from a point made by Ellen in 
> message 98112 and the word Huff. The definition about "blustering" 
> reminded me of the UK expression about someone "huffing and 
puffing" 
> about an occurrence which then made me think about Hufflepuff. 
Should 
> we anticipate that members of Hufflepuff are the sort of people 
who 
> fuss and bluster about things and get hot under the collar when 
> everything isn't spot on? Fudge drops nicely into this category; 
did 
> he attend Hogwarts and was he in Hufflepuff? Ernie Macmillan, 
> certainly, seems to exude a slight air of pompousness – I get the 
> feel, nice guy but a bit full of his own importance.
> Or am I just playing with another cigar? :-)

I never thought about it that deeply, but I'll just say that the 
initial *impression* I got when first reading the name "Hufflepuff" 
was that of a short, slightly overweight little boy, not at all 
athletic, puffing a bit as he goes up the stairs. In other words, a 
general sense of someone who is not particularly gifted, who 
struggles a bit, finds everything rather an effort, and has to work 
harder to keep up with everyone else. And I thought that that was 
the impression that Rowling wanted to create.  Maybe the big, 
sweeping brushstroke is a valid technique - it creates emotional 
reactions and moods in the reader, but it gets lost if you try to 
study it with a magnifying glass.

Wanda