HBP spoiler(ish): Hor-thingies: etymology

[Richard]

Instead of spoiler space, a digression, which is deliberately wordy...

In a post about etymology, a few words about the plural of "Patronus", 
which has recently been the subject of debate: The Latin word is fourth 
declension, which means that whatever the English plural might be, it is 
NOT "patroni". Latin "-i" plural endings belong to the second declension, 
and English is very snobbish about the plurals of words taken wholesale 
from Latin.

In Latin, 4th declension plurals end on "us", i.e. the same as the 
singular, and 4th D. words which have come into English unchanged add "-es" 
for the plural to distinguish them from the singular. An example which 
immediately springs to  mind is "census". Who's ever heard of population 
"censi" as opposed to "censuses"? (BTW, my spell-checker just questioned 
"censi", but not "censuses". :-)

To insist that "Patronus" must have a plural of "Patroni" is to make 
incorrect suppositions based on a fractured knowledge of Latin grammar.

As the saying goes, a little knowledge is a dangerous thing.

That should suffice as spoiler protection, but I'll waffle on a bit, just 
in case.

I was going to include the term "Horcrux" in the subject heading as only 
someone who's read HBP would have any inkling of what I'm on about, but 
decided to shroud it in a little caution.

As soon as it became apparent that Horcruxes would be important, i.e. the 
first time we hear the word, which conveniently was at the end of a chapter 
(Ch. 17), I took some time out from reading to try to determine a possible 
etymology in an effort to work out the significance. I reached for my Greek 
and Latin dictionaries for a little help as well (my command of these 
languages is a little rusty).

The red herring of the subject being raised in the context of asking a 
*potions* teacher about it (or was Sluggy Head of Slytherin House at the 
time, as well?) led me off-track for a while, but I still didn't guess what 
the term meant until we got the complete answer.

Apart from her character names, which usually have a basis in any one of 
myriad mythologies, JKR's invented words usually come from Greek, Latin or 
occasionally French. Given that I have at least a passing grasp of all of 
these, I felt I should be able to work something out. Here's a precis of my 
thought processes. This may be boring to some, but I thought I'd write it 
up anyway (especially as it seems most people don't seem to like the name 
"Horcrux" - as it happens, neither do I). I've always been keen on 
etymology and JKR's combinations are generally one of the things I like 
about her books, so perhaps someone else might be interested.

It's clear there are two parts: "hor-" and "-crux".

The second part was easy (or so I thought) : "crux" can mean only "cross" 
(as in what Jesus died on) in Latin and nothing else; no similar-sounding 
word exists in Greek or French. One of its primary Latin offspring is 
"cruciatus" (where have we heard that word  before?) which means, 
literally, "torture" (as a noun, the verb being "cruciare", or in the first 
person singular, "crucio"...).

More on "crux" in a moment. In the meantime, let's look at "hor-".

My first idea was about "time": Latin "hora" has made it to most languages, 
including English, to mean "hour", and has extended to many concepts 
related to time (probably best-known example being "horloge", French for 
"clock"). Was Riddle interested in some form of time travel? Especially as 
JKR's already insisted that there's a connection between HBP and CoS, and 
although there was no time travel as such in Book 2, Riddle managed to 
preserve his former self for the future.

Other options:

- various Latin (and transliterated Greek) words starting "horr-" (but note 
double R) related to "horror", "horrible", etc  (that's where we got the 
English words!), which doesn't really make sense - if "crux" is a cross, 
it's horrific enough. Also, it needs a double R.

- all kinds of words starting "hort-" related to gardening and botany. 
Hmmm. Perhaps Riddle's considering cultivating objects of torture? An 
incantation to make a cross spring up behind the victim and crucify him? 
Nah. A bit too close to the effects of crucio which we know about. Besides, 
Riddle asked about "horcuxES", so it's not an incantation. Furthermore, it 
doesn't make sense without the T.

- "horaeum", meaning "pickle" (fruit/vegetables preserved in vinegar): not 
very promising. But perhaps Riddle wants to preserve the feeling of being 
tortured? We know he is of a sadistic bent and perhaps he wants to collect 
people's dying moments of torture to re-enjoy again and again? And perhaps 
there's some kind of potion the victim needs to take, which is why he's 
asking his Potions master? This sounds like a good candidate.

- related to the above, "horreum", meaning "store-room" or "larder". Note 
the double R, so I discounted it.

I felt happy with the idea of "pickle" + "cross" (plus a bit of artistic 
licence) - it fit with what we know of Riddle's personality, but at the 
time I didn't realise that it doesn't really fit: we were introduced to the 
Horcrux in conjunction with Riddle's murder of his parents: from what we 
know, when the bodies were found, there was nothing wrong with them except 
for the fact that they were dead - surely if they'd died while being 
tortured, there would have been some indication?

Anyway, it's not until the second Sluggy memory that we discovered that JKR 
was being naughty and (presumably) used the modern English meaning of the 
word which is only distantly related to its Latin root (dictionary.com on 
"crux": "The basic, central, or critical point or feature - the crux of the 
matter"; "A puzzling or apparently insoluble problem"), but even so, 
there's a fair bit of distance to considering "crux" to mean "soul".

So, she takes a modern, rather than historical, meaning for one of her 
words, and mis-spells the other (there should be a double R) to describe 
crucial (sic) objects for the resolution of the books' central mystery. Is 
it any wonder we couldn't work it out?

--
Richard, who doesn't like mixed etymologies, and neither do academics