Vanishing Cabinet(s)/ Blood / Spell-Check

[Catlady (Rita Prince Winston)]

No: HPFGUIDX 149138

Peggy Wilkins wrote in
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/149120 :

<< Oh, the dire implications of a pair of cabinets making an unknown
passageway between Borgin and Burkes and Hogwarts! Who could have put
it there, and when?  Who knew about it?  And was anyone using it
before it was broken? >>

Your theory that it was Filch's pair of cabinets is very clever, but I
somehow thought the cabinets were older than Filch.

Long ago, I floated a theory (which sank without reply) that the pair
of Vanishing Cabinets dated back to a previous Headmaster (maybe
Phineas Nigellus), who put one in hiser office or bedroom and the
other at hiser boyfriend/girlfriend's house, or maybe hiser illegal
Dark Arts laboratory or gambling den. The next Headmaster had no use
for a Vanishing Cabinet in hiser quarters and ordered it removed. The
heirs of the cabinet at the other end had no use for a Vanishing
Cabinet and sold it to Borgin and Burke's. My implication is that no
one except the two people who installed the pair of cabinets knew that
they were connected. Everyone else just thought that things put into
one cabinet just vanished, not travelled.

So I wonder whether they're really named Vanishing Cabinets, or that
name was applied under a false impression of what they did. 

Because I think Vanishing things is destroying them, not transporting
them nor making them invisible. (In OoP. they learned Vanishing
Spell(s) in Transfiguration (why not Charms?), practising on mice and
kittens, and some listie said that Vanishing must be transportation
rather than destruction or else Hermione is a kitten-killer. Well, she
is. The wizarding folk have no idea of opposing cruelty to animals.) 

The problem with that is also in OoP, where Bill uses 'Evanesco' to
dispose of a bunch of scrolls before Harry can see what's on them. If
he wanted to destroy them, why did he bother rolling them up and
trying to carry them away first? I think that was a Flint and he was
really supposing to use a Banishing Spell (taught in Charms) rather
than a Vanishing Spell.

Ceridwen wrote in
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/149124 :

<< Why would anyone want a single vanishing cabinet and not a pair? 
Why would someone want to stick their things into a cabinet that will
disappear them to Merlin-knows-where? >>

To destroy evidence. To murder inconvenient people (like Montague).
Presumably that's why it was in a Dark Arts shop.

Lupinlore wrote in
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/149122 :

<<Pippin [wrote:] << still ROTFLMAO over Lupinlore's assertion that
Rowling would need to have done forensic research to know  about
wiping up blood. Vive la difference...>>
Why?  I grew up around policeman and have no idea how hard or easy it
is to wipe blood off human hair.  I went to medical school and have no
idea how hard or easy it is to wipe blood off human hair.  In other
words, IMO this is a clue to absolutely, positively, nothing, and is
not obvious even to someone who HAS been medically trained, much less
someone who hasn't. >>

I thought it was obvious from 'vive la difference' that she was
speaking of menstrual blood. But my recollection of long-ago Human
Anatomy and Physiology class (undergraduate) is that menstrual blood
is different from other shed blood because it has already clotted and
unclotted.

Potioncat wrote in
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/149126 :

<< it crossed my mind that a spelling dictionary would be a different
type of book for witches than for muggles.>> 

Do they ever say 'spelling' instead of 'casting spells'?

<< As would spell-check.... >>

JKR didn't take advantage of the pun. Ron had a spell-checking quill
in HBP. 

Two relevant passages: p114 at Weasley's Wizard Wheezes, there were
"boxes of quills, which came in Self-Inking, Spell-Checking, and
Smart-Answer varieties. A space cleared in the crowd, and Harry pushed
his way toward the counter, where a gaggle of delighted ten-year-olds
was watching a tiny little wooden man slowly ascending the steps to a
real set of gallows, both perched on a box that read: Reusable hangman
- spell it or he'll swing!" 

and  p421 "How do you spell 'belligerent'?" said Ron, shaking his
quill very hard while staring at his parchment. "It can't be B � U � M �" 
"No, it isn't," said Hermione, pulling Ron's essay toward her. "And
'augury' doesn't begin O � R � G either. What kind of quill are you
using?" 
"It's one of Fred and George's Spell-Check ones, but I think the charm
must be wearing off." 
"Yes, it must," said Hermione, pointing at the title of his essay,
"because we were asked how we'd deal with dementors, not 'Dug-bogs',
and I don't remember you changing your name to 'Roonil Wazlib� either." 

Has JKR had problems with spell-checkers changing her correct
spellings to incorrect ones, maybe auto-changing her name to Rolling?