Snape! Snape! Snape! Snape! Loverly Snape! Wonderful Snape! (long)

[horridporrid03]

No: HPFGUIDX 148196

> >>Shaun: 
> > I also think people can make too much of precise words used in 
> > interviews. I don't think all that many people have been 
> > interviewed by the media really. I have been on several         
> > occasions, although on only one of those occasions did the      
> > details of that interview wind up in the media. I don't think    
> > that using a word imprecisely in a media interview is a sign    
> > that a person is sloppy, it's just a reflection of the fact that 
> > you are having to think on your feet and often condense quite    
> > complex ideas into a fairly few words. <SNIP>

> >>Alla:
> See, I don't understand this at all. How do you know that JKR used 
> the word imprecisely? IMO it is more logical to assume that she   
> meant precisely what she said.

Betsy Hp:
For me, there are two reasons.  One, it's spoken word used, as Shaun 
points out, in an interview format.  It's not a formal speech for 
which JKR has prepared her thoughts.  She's answering questions off 
the cuff, while at the same time trying not to give away too much.

And while I have heard people (a very few) who are able to speak 
extemporaneously in full sentences and paragraphs, every word 
carefully chosen, JKR is not one of them.  She starts and stops, she 
digresses, she doesn't always complete a sentence.  In other words, 
she does not speak how she writes. (As most people do not. I'm not 
trying to insult JKR at all.)  So I do not give her spoken words the 
weight I do her written words.

Second, it's not borne out in the books.  If Snape is so *obviously* 
supposed to be a sadist that JKR feels free to comment that of 
course he is, than why is doesn't she make it clear in the books?  
Why not clearly show the most casual reader that this man enjoys 
seeing others in pain?  She does so with Umbridge.  She fails to do 
so with Snape.

So we have a spoken comment that doesn't precisely fit with the 
books.  In that sort of situation choosing the colloquial definition 
over the precise seems the more logical move, IMO. 

Betsy Hp