spells/themepark/Scabbers/Crookshanks/Lupin&Dementors on train/Sirius

[Geoff]

No: HPFGUIDX 189528



--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "Catlady (Rita Prince" <catlady at ...> wrote:
>
> Joey asked in <http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/189469>:
> 
> << Are spells also like words where different words could give the same meaning? Not sure if there are other such spells. >>
> 
> Oh yes. I always go on about that "Locomotor trunk" spell that Tonks used to transport Harry's trunk. It's redundant with the Mobili- spell that we had already learned: Mobiliarbus to move a tree, Mobilicorpus to move an unconscious person (body), and surely Mobilicysta would move a trunk.

Geoff:
I think that "redundant" is too strong a word. It is very common in English to have 
synonyms so that you can choose different words to cover the same thing, for 
example to "ask" rather than to "request".

Agreed, this is an perhaps unusual because of the rather mongrel background of 
English with so much drawn from both German (Anglo-Saxon) and French roots 
but it does occur to some extent in other languages and I think a case can be 
made for the spellsunder consideration.

"Mobili-" type spells can be considered to be derived from "mobilis/mobilitas", to do 
with being mobile while "locomotor" is from the two sources "locus" - a place and 
"moto" - to move.