Slight-OT: Hogworts, Plus Dragon Blood (was: Wordplay...)

[Steve]

No: HPFGUIDX 152622

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "justcarol67" <justcarol67 at ...>
wrote:
>
> Najwa wrote:
> > 
> > Hogwarts is a flower isn't 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. ...
> 
> Carol responds:
> Good catch. The plant is actually spelled "Hogswort," which JKR would
> probably consider an amusing name ..., especially in connection with
> warthogs. Put the two together and you have "Hogwarts," certainly an
> odd name for a school of any sort. ...edited...
>

bboyminn:

I believe the story goes like this. JKR had been to the Botanical
Gardens several years earlier with a friend, and it was there that she
saw the name 'Hogworts' and mentally put it on file. Much later she
decided to name the magic school 'Hogwarts', and it was then that her
friend reminded her where she had seen this name before. 

Finding character and place names for fiction is not an easy task. 
You would think it would be easy though, 'I'll call this one George,
that one Fred, and the other one Harry'; but sorry that isn't the
case. You can troll for countless hours through baby name databases,
maps (Dusley & Snape came from maps), slave name databases, Scotish
Clan databases and maps, databases of famous English, Irish, and
Russian poets and authors, product brand names (I named a character
after a cigarette-Dunhill), movie and TV credits, and countless other
sources. In some sense, every character (and Place) already has a
name, as an author, you don't make it up, you seek to discover what it
is. When you finally do discover it, you know it's right.

If you search Google for 'hogworts', you will find several references
to Croton capitatus Michx, also known as Doveweed, Hogweed, Hogwort,
and woolly croton. 

Here are a few -

http://www.forestryimages.org/browse/subthumb.cfm?sub=5388&start=1

http://plants.usda.gov/java/profile?symbol=CRCA6

http://www.itis.usda.gov/servlet/SingleRpt/SingleRpt?search_topic=TSN&search_value=28266


Interestingly, there is a plant called "Dragon's Blood" -

http://botanical.com/botanical/mgmh/d/dragon20.html

Maybe the 12 uses of Dragon's Blood is not really the 12 uses of
DRAGON's Blood.

Just passing it along.

Steve/bboyminn