Professor Sinistra (Was: Over-Analysis of Minor Plot Points - Astronomy )

[Lady Macbeth]

No: HPFGUIDX 116597


Potioncat:
OOps, my delete button was a little excited.
Anyway, my post has nothing to do with being left handed.  But I 
think I read that JKR confirmed to one of the translators that 
Professor Sinistra is male.  Does anyone else remember that?


Lady Macbeth replies:
I had heard that she confirmed Sinistra was FEMALE.  I just
double-checked it at the Lexicon now and it says the same thing:

Quoted from http://www.hp-lexicon.org/wizards/wizards-s-u.html -
Sinistra (witch) 
Professor at Hogwarts, Astronomy department. 
The question of Sinistra's gender came up during the translation of OP
into Portugese. The translation team contacted the Lexicon for an
answer to the question, but I couldn't answer for sure, since it never
says one way or the other in the books. I suggested that they contact
Rowling, which they did. Rowling's reps responded that Sinistra was in
fact a woman. - ed. 

"sinistra" - Italian: "with the left hand" 
"Sinistra" is the name of a magnitude 3.5 star in the constellation
Ophiuchus, the Serpent Handler. 
"Ophiuchus represented Aesculapius, the ancient healer, believed to be
the ancestor of Hippocrates (born 460 BCE) the great physician of Cos,
and Serpens was his symbol of healing. The serpent is the symbol for
the poison (venom) that can both cure and kill, Ophiuchus controls it
and uses it to heal. This same snake is found on the symbol of
medicine worldwide, the staff of the god Mercury, the caduceus, and
both these constellations are associated with it, the caduceus shows
two snakes coiling around a central rod surmounted by two wings of the
bird on top." (from The Fixed Stars website)  


-Lady Macbeth