Etymology of "Pensieve" (Was: JKR punning names )

[justcarol67]

No: HPFGUIDX 160750

Geoff wrote:
> <snip>
> The other one I forgot but usually mention is "Pensieve" = "a device
for storing memories" which is a play on words on "pensive" (thoughful).
>
Carol notes:

Actually, it's a device for examining memories. Any storage is short
term. The memories are either stored in vials until they're used or
kept in the person's head and removed for examination. The only time
we see them actually "stored" in the Pensieve is in GoF, when
Dumbledore wants to stir them up and see how they relate to each
other--a connection between his memory of Bertha Jorkins and his
memories of trial scenes involving Barty Crouch (in which Mad-Eye
Moody and Snape and Karkaroff also appear), for example.

I think the pun is not only on "pensive" (thoughtful) but on "sieve,"
a device for sifting (which is what DD does when he moves the Pensieve
around like a miner sifting for gold or an old-fashioned baked sifting
flour using a sieve rather than a sifter with a handle).

Note definition 2 of "sift," which is closely related to "sieve":

Main Entry: sift
Pronunciation: 'sift
Function: verb
Etymology: Middle English, from Old English siftan; akin to Old
English sife sieve
transitive verb
1 a : to put through a sieve <sift flour> b : to separate or separate
out by or as if by putting through a sieve
2 : to go through especially to sort out what is useful or valuable
<sifted the evidence> -- often used with through <sift through a pile
of old letters>

That's what DD is doing in GoF--sifting the evidence in his Pensieve
to make connections, essentially sorting the wheat from the chaff but
also putting the "useful or valuable" pieces together into a
meaningful whole. Gives a new meaning to the phrase, "I'll sort this
out" (though it's usually Mr. Weasley, not DD, who uses that phrase).

Carol, thinking that Pensieve is one of JKR's more clever puns and
hoping that we'll see some "sieved" or "sifted" thoughts and memories
in Book 7