(Aside): Hogwarts curriculum

dungrollin spotthedungbeetle at hotmail.com
Mon Sep 6 23:55:06 UTC 2004


No: HPFGUIDX 112226

Out of interest, was anyone else surprised about Hermione liking 
Arithmancy?  It is, actually, (despite not being in my Chambers 
English Dictionary) a real word.  I have in front of me The 
Wordsworth Book of Intriguing Words, and in the chapter '-omancy 
fancy' (the literary forms of fortune-telling) it is listed under 
miscellaneous.

After the way she disparaged Trelawney's classes are we to be led to 
believe that divination by numbers is more _accurate_ than other 
forms? - and is that why it appeals to Miss Granger?  Why is 
Arithmancy not part of the divination syllabus?  Why does it merit 
an entire subject on its own?

I think we should be told!
Dungrollin.

(Just for fun, some of the more unusual ones are:

Name                Divination by...  
Rhapsodomancy       Picking a passage of poetry at random
Podomancy           Signs derived from inspection of the feet
Xenomancy           Studying the first stranger that appears
Omphalomancy        The navel
Dririmancy          Dripping blood
Cromnyomancy        Onions (?!)
Coscinomancy        The turning of a sieve held on a pair of 
                    shears (whatever that's supposed to mean...)
Ailuromancy         The way a cat jumps
Aichomancy          Sharply pointed objects
And my personal favourite (which _is_ in my Chambers English 
Dictionary):
Tyromancy           Watching cheese coagulate)







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