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

[a_svirn]

No: HPFGUIDX 148200

 
> > >>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.
> 

a_svirn:
All that is very true, of course, but it doesn't mean that she used 
the word in error. Some people can be woefully dyslectic on 
occasion, but Rowling doesn't strike me as one of them. If she said 
that Snape is sadistic she obviously meant it. I'll go with 
Wittgenstein's common rule that "Meaning just is use." Her usage of 
the word "sadistic" may not coincide precisely with the appropriate 
entry in the Oxford Dictionary, but that's apparently the meaning 
she herself allocates to it.