Nitwit! Blubber! Oddment! Tweak!

[justcarol67]

No: HPFGUIDX 165061

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, Bart Lidofsky <bartl at ...> wrote:
>
> Bart:
> I have just started re-reading the series, to prepare for Book 7,
and I noticed something in Book 1 that I had never noticed before.
Dumbledore's "speech" at the beginning of the Hogwarts term, a few
words, "Nitwit! Blubber! Oddment! Tweak!" seemed a bit strange. In
particular, the word, "oddment" didn't quite seem to fit. Then I
looked at the phrase, and saw that one could extract the name
"Dumbledore" from the letters in the word. After doing so, I tossed
the rest of the letters into an anagram generator, allowed for obscure
words, and got, well, nothing useful, so far. I figured that it was
unlikely that I was the first to notice this, so I checked the web,
and, at least after half an hour or so of looking, could not find
anything about this anagram possiblity. 
> 
> Has this ever been discussed here? 
> 
>     Bart
>
Carol responds:

I think it's just an example of Dumbledore's (and JKR's) eccentric
sense of humor, Dumbledore's literal interpretation of "a few words,"
all of which happen to be either odd or humorous in themselves. The
Griffin door (Gryffindor) knocker, the textbook authors (e.g.,
Libatius Borage, Wilbert Slinkhard), placenames like Diagon Alley and
Knockturn Alley all reflect that same delight in words, in and of
themselves.

It's interesting that Percy answers Harry's question, "Is he--a bit
mad?" (Harry is reacting to DD's "few words") with "Mad? He's a
genius! Best wizard in the world! But he is a bit mad, yes" (SS 123).
So JKR, through Percy, is equating genius and madness, or, at least,
genius and eccentricity, humorously illustrated through these four
harmless and oddly whimsical words.

Carol, wondering whether this eccentric side of Dumbledore is a mask
he wears for the students or an essential component of his complicated
essence