GoF Sphinx's riddle: Did Harry get it wrong?

[Geoff Bannister]

No: HPFGUIDX 130417

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, Amanda Coleman <spherissa at g...> 
wrote:
> tigerpatronus wrote:
> "Next tell me what's always the last thing to mend,
> The middle of middle and end of the end?"
> 
> The last word on the first line: "mend"

Amanda:
> I think looking at this that this couplet is refering to the letter 
> 'd'.
> 
> Last thing to mend? =d. (if looked at literally)
> Middle of middle? =dd (unless we're pedantic and say it's nothing
> which I don't think JKR would do to us, at least not in conjunction
> with the other two clues ie 'last thing to mend' and 'end of the 
end')
> End of the end =d.
> 
> Now.. singly I wouldn't put much credence in the 'd' being
> significant, but they all reinforce one another and that seems a
> Rowlingesque Riddle to me.
> 
> Though... having reasoned out that the couplet is referring to the
> letter dee I am stuck for ideas of what significance this holds.

Geoff:
I'm inclined to go with the riddle at face value as JKR wrote it.

Someone has pointed out that DE is used mainly as an abbreviation by 
poeple such as ourselves in commentary and discussion of the books. 
Glancing briefly through one or two chapters where they are in 
evidence, JKR tends to call them by their full name each time.

Again, Harry is in the middle of the Tri-Wizard Tournament and Death 
Eaters are not at the forefront of his mind at that point in time. 
He's working against time, he is looking for what, to him, is a 
straightforward answer to the riddle is, if that isn't a 
contradiction in terms. He's weighing up the various options put 
forward by the Sphinx....

If someone was to throw the first couplet of the riddle at me out of 
the blue and say "What do you reckon the answer to that is?" I think 
that my response would be very similar to Harry's - his answer 
doesn't even consider a Voldemort connection; interestingly, it's 
just occurred to me that he does think of "impostor", which is what 
Crouch!Moody is, but that's a side thought.

And again,in the "demender" theory, mend doesn't fit the second line 
of its couplet as an answer and, as someone has already remarked, I 
can't think of any British local accent which would turn "ment" 
into "mend" and I live in an area which does a lot of funny things 
with its pronunciation!