I've never read Harry Potter, but for all of you who were confused by British terminology, why didn't you post your questions and let us help you? :D
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I've never read Harry Potter, but for all of you who were confused by British terminology, why didn't you post your questions and let us help you? :D
Ah, taken out of context. Don't you just love that?
Quote:
Originally Posted by mrspunkysmom
Neither have I. But when you've read books (for my job) by authors that write only to impress themselves, it is nice to read something easy and straightforward. Of course, JKR's writing is not straightforward, which takes us back to the quoted post. JKR uses literary and historical references in her nomenclature to directly impart or hint at information about a character, event, object, or place. Either you know it or you have to research it. So I use the Unofficial Guides as a starting place. Saves a lot of time.Quote:
Originally Posted by RedHedd
You can get the gist of the story from the unofficial guide but that's it. It would not be any fun reading the guide and not read the books.
Ah, yes, very good point, which is, I think, why so many adults are drawn to HP. Kids can read them as a simple adventure story, but the complexity is there so that they stand up to rereading (a bazillion times or so. :D ) The Guide books and internet groups have brought even more stuff to my attention, stuff I wouldn't have noticed/figured out on my own.Quote:
Originally Posted by mrspunkysmom
Okay.Quote:
Originally Posted by Killearn Kitties
Bin = Trashcan
Jumper = sweater?
pasty?
take the mickey out on?
I believe there is a difference in how candies are named? lemon drop and such?
I like it when she uses the British vocabulary (or vernacular). It's a good lesson for American students.
Yes.Quote:
Originally Posted by mrspunkysmom
Yes.Quote:
Originally Posted by mrspunkysmom
A little hard to say without context, but if used of a person it would mean pale / wan / hadn't seen the sun in a while. Quite common in Britain. ;)Quote:
Originally Posted by mrspunkysmom
To take the mickey out of someone is to make fun of them.Quote:
Originally Posted by mrspunkysmom
I think what you would call candies, we would call sweets.Quote:
Originally Posted by mrspunkysmom
I agree. I always enjoy that aspect of reading things from other countries. It is very informative.Quote:
Originally Posted by mrspunkysmom
Pasty as in pumpkin pasty. I thought the publisher had misspelled pastry. But it's really pasty or pastie?
What is the origin of "Take the mickey"?
I read somewhere that US lemon drops are not the same as British Lemon drops. I jsut do not remember the difference now.
I know there are other words that confuse me. I'll look.
I have never read any of the books or seen any of the movies. I don't plan on doing either one.
I took me myself and I to the movie tonite
and
LOVED IT!!
LOVED IT!!
so did the three of you make notes for comparisons or keep a running commentary going?
Perhaps i'll go instead of waiting for the DVD.
I wanted to see the movie on opening night but I had to work at 4:00 a.m. the following morning so that didn't happen! However Alexa, two of my workfriends and I traveled nearly 2 hours to see the movie at the IMAX in Phoenix this past friday! This Friday we are going to the book release party at my favorite local bookstore, we will all be dressed up in costume of course :D
Pasty, in a food context, is some kind of filling wrapped in pastry. The original Cornish pasty was meat and vegetables wrapped in pastry with a thick crust at one side where the two ends of the pastry had been joined. Supposedly they were a lunch for miners because they still held a little heat by lunchtime (I've always doubted that part, unless they ate their lunch soon after leaving home, but it is supposed to be true). They would hold the pasties by the crust, eat the rest, but discard the crust which they had been holding.Quote:
Originally Posted by mrspunkysmom
The picture on this link is terrible, but you get the idea. Pasties
Nowadays you get all kind of fillings, but I have to say that I have never seen pumpkin! I assume that must have been for the purposes of the plot.
Take the Mickey This link explains a couple of derivations. Certainly the one they think is the most likely, I have seen before elsewhere.
Look! Lemon drops I found a Wikipedia link which has a brief description of both types. Ours are not lemon shaped though, more lozenge shaped.
Will there be pictures? :pQuote:
Originally Posted by Uabassoon
Harry Potter's big con is the prose
Nicholas Lezard
A nine-year-old might feel quite pleased with the writing in the Harry Potter books. It's pretty embarrassing coming from an adult.
It is time to make a stand against Harry Potter. A futile stand, no death or glory involved: just popping my head over the trenches so it can be mowed off by the vast, unstoppable juggernaut of popular acclaim before I have begun to open my mouth.
Firstly: if you're going to buy her book, don't buy it for half price at a supermarket. As an example of a world gone mad, you couldn't do much better than this: a writer whose sales have actually fulfilled a publisher's wildest dreams is indirectly responsible for large-scale misery among independent bookstores. This is not JK Rowling's fault. It's a consequence of the deregulation of the book market.
Tesco, say, sells the new Potter for about the same price as two tins of beans, in the hope that the mug(gle)s who do so will be convinced that everything in the shop must be marvellous value. Meanwhile, Mrs Betty Cardigan who runs the Lovely Bookshop Round the Corner has to grit her teeth and lose money every time she sells a copy if she is to compete, without being able to sell toilet paper or sushi to make up the difference. If you must buy the book, go to Mrs Cardigan's and, even if it is at a discount, insist on paying full price.
But whether you should buy the book at all is another matter. For I have come, with some regret, to this conclusion: their style is toxic. And this is Rowling's fault. I know that I am anticipating what the style of the latest book will be in advance of actually seeing it, but really, I don't think I'm going out on a limb here. Of course, if she has turned into a first-class writer with her forthcoming Potter book, I will happily, no, joyously, eat my words.
But until then, we have to swallow hers. And for all that she is gifted enough in devising popular scenarios, the words on the page are flat. I think it was Verlaine who said that he could never write a novel because he would have to write, at some point, something like "the count walked into the drawing-room" - not a scruple that can have bothered JK Rowling, who is happy enough writing the most pedestrian descriptive prose.
Here, from page 324 of The Order of the Phoenix, to give you a typical example, are six consecutive descriptions of the way people speak. "...said Snape maliciously," "... said Harry furiously", " ... he said glumly", "... said Hermione severely", "... said Ron indignantly", " ... said Hermione loftily". Do I need to explain why that is such second-rate writing?
If I do, then that means you're one of the many adults who don't have a problem with the retreat into infantilism that your willing immersion in the Potter books represents. It doesn't make you a bad or silly person. But if you have the patience to read it without noticing how plodding it is, then you are self-evidently someone on whom the possibilities of the English language are largely lost.
This is the kind of prose that reasonably intelligent nine-year-olds consider pretty hot stuff, if they're producing it themselves; for a highly-educated woman like Rowling to knock out the same kind of material is, shall we say, somewhat disappointing.
Children exposed to this kind of writing aren't learning anything new about words, or being stretched in any way; as Harold Bloom said, they're not going to be inspired to go off and read the Alice books, or any other enduring classic.
People go hoopla because they're delighted that Rowling has got children reading books - big, fat books without pictures at that. Can't argue with that: and maybe they will learn something about sheer reading stamina in the process. But it's all too easy.
The popular writer whose style is most similar is, it suddenly occurs to me, Jeffrey Archer (all those dead adverbs). All that paper, all those trees felled, all those words ... surely Rowling could have chosen some better ones, or put them together in a more exciting way?
She has, in her grasp, the power to galvanise minds instead of reeling out cliché after cliché. Will The Deathly Hallows do this? I hope so. But I fear not.
http://blogs.guardian.co.uk/books/20..._is_the_p.html
That's a bit of a snotty review there from The Guardian. :D
I just can't believe this. I got home tonight and found a note behind the door from the Killearn Co-op. They are opening at midnight on Friday for the launch of the new and final Harry Potter novel. Staff will be wearing costumes, customers can join in the fun. There will be a Harry Potter tunnel which kids can enter (at midnight??), with great effects inside. After exiting the tunnel, there will be samples of witches brew and wizards treats!
Bear in mind that Killearn is a teeny place, and I can't help but feel that the staff will outnumber the customers!
I agree. What's wrong with a simply written book? There is an academic snobbery that suggests that any book not written as if the author swallowed a dictionary isn't worth the mention.
The books were written as children's book and in a certain style. I'm reading "Who killed Albus Dumbledore" tonight, a collection of online writings at the various chat groups by some of JKR's biggest fans. John Granger, an english teacher, edits the book for clarity. His own article is well written and is intended for academic discussion, yet is readable. He likes her style. The books success are not so much about her style or writing skill, but about her ability to weave a tale with clues wihtout giving away the ending.
I suspect that student reading has increased thanks to JKR. Walk into a childrens book section and just look.
When I was in college, my piano instuctor was a snob. In her view, the only true instruments were voice, piano, organ, and the strings. All other instruments serve to compliment the aforementioned tools. Yikes, I changed majors.
As for buying from the book store. Some families can't afford it if it isn't cheap.
I can't wait until tomorrow night.