Religion in the Wizarding World. (Was: Re: Halloween Toasts)

[Geoff]

No: HPFGUIDX 191418



--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "Nathaniel" <natti_shafer at ...> wrote:
>
> --- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "Geoff" <geoffbannister123@> wrote:
> > Geoff:
> > This is US English raising its head again.....
> > 
> > In HBP, Harry meets up with Draco in a "boys' bathroom". To a 
> > British person, a "bathroom" is a "bathroom" is a "bathroom". We 
> > never refer to toilets as bathrooms. The most common usage, 
> > which has crept into informal speak in the last few decades is "loo"; 
> > in more polite society "toilet". Lavatory has rather dropped out of 
> > regular usage. In my house, we have a ground floor loo and on the 
> > first floor we have a bathroom which also contains  a loo.

Nathaniel:
> Are you sure about that? I lent out my Bloomsbury edition of CoS, but I don't remember Moaning Myrtle's bathroom being referred to as a "loo." 

Geoff:
No, it probably wasn't, which is exactly the point I made in my post - 
to a UK person, a bathroom is precisely that: a bathroom.

Nathaniel:
The Lexicon does not mention the word "bathroom" among the Americanizations of CoS:

Geoff:
No and the Lexicon doesn't always get things right. I decided just to 
check the Lexicon myself and immediately saw a UK/US coupling which 
just wasn't right as soon as I looked at the page.

Nathaniel:
> However, Myrtle is definitely in a room with toilets, but neither showers nor baths are ever mentioned. If there are baths or shower stalls in Myrtle's bathroom, I would think that's a better place to stew Polyjuice potion than in a toilet stall. 

Geoff:
We are told we are in a bathroom. It is not necessary to the story to 
describe the room in great detail. When I was at college, we had a big 
communal bathroom as well as ones in the student blocks which might be 
shared among two or three people. The big one had a number of baths 
available and also a shower plus several sinks for guys just wanting a shave 
and wash first thing in the morning plus urinals and several WCs. But 
basically it was a bathroom. As I said before we have a combined bathroom 
and loo on the first floor which is always known as the bathroom and a 
separate toilet on the ground floor. Many UK houses now have this set up 
although our last house in Porlock had a toilet and bathroom adjacent to 
each other on the first floor which we knocked into one for convenience 
and greater space.

I think that the film scene of the Polyjuice brewing in COS showed that it had 
been written by an American who had considered Myrtle's bathroom to be a 
large toilet whereas it probably fitted the parameters I outlined in the last 
paragraph.