Felix Felicis, Geoff and Latin grammar

[deborahhbbrd]

No: HPFGUIDX 129053

Geoff wrote:
<and I snipped>
given and family names which are derived from something like that are
sometimes strange if viewed from a grammatical standpoint.

There again, JKR has flown on the face of Latin grammar and accurate
Latin a number of times. Some of her spells leave a little bit to be
desired linguistically.

Deborah again:

So they do an' all, but I've always justified this by assuming that
since languages change over time when they are used creatively, some
words (like 'Expelliarmus', which would have driven Cicero into a
frothy frenzy) have become modified simply because they are used in
the WW in a way they could never be used in the classroom, or
presumably the Vatican. 

That still leaves me convinced that Felix Felicis cannot be human.
Cannot be a name. Not in the Latin system. Felix Felixson, yes maybe.
Felicity Felixdaughter, why not? (She's probably in the Iceland
Quidditch team.) But real, live Latin speakers didn't name their sons
things like Julius Julianus. And I don't think that Felix Felicis,
with or without initial capital letters, is a likely phrase. It's an
entry in a filing system, providing information about where 'felix'
fits into the language, and it's useful narrowly, just as it is
narrowly useful to know where gold appears in the periodic table,
though when discussing Snitches or one's wedding ring one says 'gold'
and not 'Au', or '79'.

So, what is it in HBP? Why is a dear little long-ago adjective
entitled to be a title? Nicholas Flamel would have written up his
experiments in Latin; the Hogwarts founders would have taught in Latin
(especially Rowena!); some of the old books in the restricted section
of the library must logically be in Latin; Felix the Cat could be an
animagus (getting desperate here!) ... and none of it helps at all!
(I'm *here*, and my books are *there*, so I can't check: do all the
words in the chapter headings regularly get capitalised?)

Deborah, infelix atque impatiens