HBP spoiler(ish): Hor-thingies: etymology

[Barry Arrowsmith]

--- In the_old_crowd at yahoogroups.com, Richard <hp at p...> wrote:
> At 22:58 17/07/05 , Barry Arrowsmith replied to my previous:
> >--- In the_old_crowd at yahoogroups.com, Richard <hp at p...> wrote:
> > >
> > > To insist that "Patronus" must have a plural of "Patroni" is to make
> > > incorrect suppositions based on a fractured knowledge of Latin grammar.
> >
> >Possibly.
> >But it looks neater and contains fewer letters. RSI, you know.
> 
> Yeah, but it reeks of showing oneself to be uninformed and verges on 
> illiteracy. Which is never a good thing when discussing works of literature.
> 
> As for RSI, surely you of all people, Barry, shouldn't be going on about 
> saving a few keystrokes? :-)

Kneasy:
Fractured? Demolished more like. It's 47 years since latin as a subject loomed
on my horizons and I didn't think much of it then either. The only bits I've
bothered with since are those that  can be sussed as descriptive identifers in 
scientific terminology. You can get a small Greek and Arabic vocabularly too if
you're interested in derivations - so: multiformans, artery (that's a good one, it
demonstrates a basic error in the deductions of the early anatomists. I've often
wondered why it's never been corrected) rhinoplasty, xylene, ion, alcohol, zero. 

Anyway, I love constructing linguistic neologisms, the more groan-worthy the 
better. I get a perverse pleasure out of doing so. If it doesn't go down well with
the purists - well, so be it; but screams of anguish might encourage me to even
worse atrocities. 

> 
> Yes, "hors" means "outside" or "beyond", and it sent my thinking in the 
> opposite direction of the ideas I mentioned. Whilst the others were (I 
> assumed) a method of "preserving" acts of cruelty, this one was to be a 
> method of saving oneself *from* acts of cruelty, i.e.  putting oneself 
> "outside the range of" an Unforgivable. I discounted this at the time 
> because a) I doubt a Hogwarts teacher would refuse to discuss a method of 
> protecting oneself against Dark activity; b) he'd ask the DADA teacher 
> rather than the Potions prof.; c) while Riddle might be interested in 
> protecting himself against Dark activity, he'd want something more pro-active.
> 
> I also discounted "hors" from my etymology of what Horcruxes *are* (as 
> opposed to what I surmised they *might be* from their name), because they 
> are clearly something you put your soul *into*; removing your soul seems 
> easy enough (get a Dementor).

Kneasy:
Hmm.
I've been looking at it from the other direction. I agree that 'crux' is probably
intended as per definition 2. in the Shorter OED - [...] a difficult matter; the 
central point. 

Adding 'hor' could then indicate 'out of (or from) the central point'.
Thus the fragments of soul are outliers from Voldy's centre; a description
of what they are (a hiding place for part of oneself outside oneself) rather than
an indication of their function or means of construction (protection or a 
by-product of his nasty habits). Splitting one's soul is more likely to be a no-no
than building a hiding place.

Naturally I would think along those lines - it can be incorporated into other
threads. The possibility that there is/had been a Salazar Horcrux in the Chamber
for example.

But no doubt Jo will enlighten us as to the etymology - sooner or later.
Probably later if she considers it of more than passing informational value.