[HPforGrownups] Translation

[Margaret Dean]

No: HPFGUIDX 189506

On Tue, Aug 10, 2010 at 6:16 PM, jlmss090505 <jlmss090505 at yahoo.com> wrote:
>
>
>
> Hi, everyone!
>
> I'm a newcomer and not native.
>
> I have a question about a sentence in HP and Sorcerer's Stone (p43).
>
> Monday. This reminded Harry of something. If it was Monday - and you
> could usually count on Dudley to know the days of the week, because of
> television - then tomorrow, Tuesday, was Harry's eleventh birthday. Of
> course, his birthdays were never exactly fun - last year, the Dursleys
> had given him a coat hanger and a pair of Uncle Vernon's old socks.
> Still, you weren't eleven every day.
>
> What does the last sentence mean?
>
> Can anyone help me? Thanks.

In English idiom, to say "[something doesn't happen] every day" means
that it's an unusual or notable event.  Say you were in New York City,
for instance, and saw a circus elephant walking down Fifth Avenue.
You might turn to the person next to you and say, "Now, *that's* not
something you see every day!"

Here I think Harry means, more or less, that tomorrow is going to be
the only eleventh birthday he'll ever have, so it's special--at least
to him!

Hope that helps!


--Margaret Dean
  <margdean56 at gmail.com>