OoP: half way through; a few comments (minor spoilers)

[plumeski]

My original intention had been to get the book at midnight and zoom 
through it at fast as I could in one sitting. However, partially 
because my plans for today had to change and partially because I 
completely agree with a comment someone made on HPFGU that "you only 
get one chance to read a book for the first time", I decided to take 
things at a slower pace and to read the book the same way I do any 
other long novel. That is, a few chapters at a time, followed by some 
reflection on what's happened to date and then moving on. With 
material like this, I also read at the speed of speech (i.e. not 
reading out loud, but wallowing in the "internal" sound of each word 
or phrase). 

I have reached the mathematical half-way mark (p. 389 of 766, the end 
of Chapter 20, "Hagrid's Tale") and that's it for today. I hope to 
have all of tomorrow to finish, with any luck just in time for 
the "re-opening" of HPFGU. 

A few comments on what I've read thus far (I've deliberately not been 
reading any other posts, and some of this may duplicate what others 
have already said, so I apologise in advance - I've already had "who 
dies" spoiled thanks to a subject title in another forum)...

Firstly, I think that JKR and/or her editor/proofreader is/are 
getting sloppy. I've not made notes so I can't quote examples, but I 
recall at least 3 misplaced apostrophes, and several syntactical 
compositions which I found ambiguous or plain wrong. To some extent, 
this has spoiled the pleasure for me (considering my position as a 
Grammar Nazi). It's also striking me that JKR's writing style 
actually works better when the text is read out loud (this could be 
one of the reasons for the popularity of the audiobooks). I find this 
just a little jarring at times.

Nevertheless, I think JKR's vocabulary has grown up just a little and 
I really don't see many under-14s understanding everything (which I 
consider a Good Thing).

Pet peeve to date: "Luna Lovegood". Urghh! The name sounds like 
something out of a bad fanfic (or an internet alias). JKR's usually 
more inventive than this with her character names. I'm not sure where 
this character is headed yet, but every time I see her name, I feel 
nauseous.

On the other hand, "Dolores Umbridge" is a magnificent name for this 
character ("pain" and "umbrage"). Boy, is she a nasty piece of work!

Talking of Prof. Umbridge, I am curious what happened to Educational 
Decree Number 23 (22 establishes the Inquisitor; 24, several chapters 
later, is about Umbridge's extra powers). I expect to find out before 
the end of the book...

Potential Flint/plot hole: how does Harry come to be in possession of 
the Marauder's Map? We last saw it in GoF, in Barty Crouch Jnr's 
possession...

There is no mention of the Hallowe'en Feast. In the four previous 
books, something big happened on that day. In year five, the festival 
isn't even mentioned ("October extnguished itself [...] and November 
arrived").

It seems that JKR has been getting a lot of mail about commonly-
debated subjects and/or has been checking out various online HP 
communities. She's given answers to whether or not Snape wanted the 
DADA job, how old Lucius Malfoy is, the first names of various 
characters previously known by surname alone, etc, etc. It reminds me 
of her explaining how to pronounce "Hermione" in GoF. :-)

A couple of lexical questions to readers of the US editions (page 
numbers are obviously no help, so I'll have to provide context):
Chapter 16, "In the Hog's Head", about halfway through the chapter: 

the pupils are relating Harry's previous heroic deeds, and after talk 
of the Patronus and the Basilisk, Neville refers to the "Philological 
Stone" (which Hermione corrects to "Philosopher's Stone"). I'm 
curious what was made of this as, of course, the American text would 
have it as the "Sorcerer's Stone".

Three pages on, the pupils are discussing where and when they're 
going to meet:

...

"Library?", suggested Katie Bell after a few moments.
"I can't see Madam Pince being too chuffed with us doing jinxes in 
the library", said Harry.

...

As far as I'm aware, this usage of "chuffed" is peculiarly British, 
and I doubt the US edition would have included it...

OPK, that's enough for now. I am going to try to keep away from HP 
forums until I've finished the book, at which time I will doubtless 
have more to say...