Ginny comes out of nowhere, but how about Ron?

[Geoff Bannister]

No: HPFGUIDX 123173


--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "justcarol67" 
<justcarol67 at y...> wrote:

Carol:
> The "mate" business surprised me, too. It sounds more like the twins
> than Ron. (IIRC, one of them addresses Sirius as "mate.") I didn't
> think of Steve Irwin--it sounded British, not Australian, to me--but
> it did strike me as "not Ron," if you understand my meaning. Is he
> trying to sound more grown up, or at least more like a teenager and
> less like a child? Or is it a means of stating his affection and
> empathy for angry!Harry is a way that will be acceptable to another
> teenage boy? Did Ron talk this way in the British editions of the
> other four books, or is it indeed something new? If so, has JKR just
> forgotten how Ron talks or does it mean something that we Americans
> (who think of "mate" as the sexual partner of an animal) are        
> missing?

Geoff:
In origin, "mate" is very much a Cockney expression (London accent); 
it may well be present in other urban UK accents. It's used, usually 
between males, indicating pal, chum, friend. You'll often hear a guy 
talking about his "best mate" for instance. I think that people's 
speech patterns do change as they go through their teenage years;  I 
tended to use different words because they were "in" - rather 
as "cool" has become standard streetspeak in recent years.