[HPforGrownups] Insults

[Janette]

No: HPFGUIDX 161146

>
> Magpie:
> Why is that the worst thing he can call her?  If he's angry about her
> flirting with James he might have called her a slut or something like
> that.
> Or maybe this word was powerful for him because it connected him to the
> people he was tied to by then.


montims: oh, the discussions I've tried to get into on Leaky about the word
"slut", and can't, because American readers read it as the worst thing a
girl can be called, with distinctly sexual connotations, and to a Brit like
me, who used to cheerfully call herself a slut before coming to America and
horrifying the few people I said this to, "slut" means someone who is no
good at housework and wears raggedy clothes, etc.  Not a very nice word if
spat spitefully by someone like Gaunt, but not the massive insult it implies
when it crosses the ocean.  "Bitch" to me would have been much more
insulting if Snape had used it - "treacherous bitch" if indeed she had
taught the Marauders Snape's own spell, to be used against him...


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