Wordplay/ What's fun about the HPs?

[justcarol67]

No: HPFGUIDX 152592

Najwa wrote:
> 
> Hogwarts is a flower isn't it? How could it be word play unless
> someone means by the school representing abnormal growths on pigs? I
> don't get the wordplay there, and come to think of it, I don't see why
> a school should be named after a flower unless there is some deep
> meaning behind that flower, which I'm sure someone will tell me that
> there is. Sorry, I'm horrible at Herbology.

Carol responds:
Good catch. The plant is actually spelled "Hogswort," which JKR would
probably consider an amusing name (considering the fun she got out of
"nitwit, blubber, oddment, tweak"), especially in connection with
warthogs. Put the two together and you have "Hogwarts," certainly an
odd name for a school of any sort. I think that Hogsmeade (Hog's
meadow) and the Hog's Head Inn grew out of the "hog-" prefix and the
colorful names of English towns and inns in general. 

BTW, hogswort evidently has medicinal value and ought to be a potions
ingredient if it isn't one. I found this reference online: "I was able
to retard the complete seizure of her muscles and almost totally
restore the limb through the judicious use of a poultice of mustard,
radish, and hogswort," apparently a line spoken by a character in a
Jane Austen-inspired online novel (Austen fanfic?). Here's the link if
anyone cares to follow it up:

http://www.austen.com/derby/sofie6.htm

At any rate, I think JKR is just having fun with words here even if
the wordplay doesn't qualify as a pun. Maybe a spoonerism of sorts as
someone mentioned upthread: "hogwarts" sounds like a misspelling or
misreading of "hogswort" that JKR may actually have heard somewhere
and collected. (I have all sorts of useless trivia of that sort, the
latest being "aqua pella" for "a cappella." One of my favorites is
"holding down the fork.")

Carol, wondering if Healer!Snape will discover the twelve use of
hogswort in the Epilogue :-)