Quote:Looking through the entire Concordance, I noticed a rather common grammar error in the entry for Arithmancy in Chapter Two's notes: "... the fact that that Hermione ..."
An HTML validator I was using to diagnose my problem with the concordance flagged the double "that", but I couldn't find it; I suspect it's wrapped across a line break in the page source; since you gave me a lot more context than the validator did, I'll go find it and fix it right now.
And wow, no, it's not split across a line break. How did I fail to find that this weekend?
Quote:I had him thinking No, he's Sirius, I'm Warlock, you're Harry Potter. Try to keep up.
I have a scene written for chapter 4 which similarly plays with this cliche:
"...which is how we know the Ministry is building an army ofheliopaths." The girl was the one I'd seen parting from the12 Grim crew when they'd entered the Great Hall that first night:long dirty-blonde hair, eyes so grey they were almost metallicsilver in color, slender almost but not quite to the point ofemaciation. Her voice was thin and dreamy and seemed to wanderaimlessly through various tones and pitches even as her gaze
wandered randonly about the room. Her name was Luna Lovegood,
and something about her struck me with a profound sense of dejavu from the moment she'd responded during roll call.
I had no idea how she had ended up discussing the Wizardinggovernment's secret army of heliopaths, whatever the hell theywere. (I made a mental note to corner Wilhelmina and ask her.)
What I *had* asked Miss Lovegood to describe was where their
instruction the previous year had left them in knowledge and
skill.
As she stood there expectantly, the voice of Terry Jones floated
through my mind: "And that, my liege, is how we know the earth
to be banana-shaped." In an attempt (possibly futile) to
maintain the illusion of dignity and being a grown-up, I finally
said (for lack of anything better), "Surely you're not serious."
She turned her wandering gaze more or less back to me, tilted herhead slowly, then replied, "Of course I'm not serious. StubbyBoardman is. And don't call me Shirley."
I resisted the urge to facepalm. I must be getting old if I'mfinding myself the straight man while the kids start zinging me
with my own favorite lines.
I wince a little when I reread this, because I really can't envision Doug being enough at a loss for words to actually respond with "Surely you're not serious", but I
so want to use the punchline for this scene. (And because, oddly enough, it sets up something for well down the road in the final chapter.)
Quote:BTW, multitool with button hooks for people with arthritis who want to be able to dress themselves.
Oh, very cool -- I'll have to include that in the entry. Thanks!
-- Bob
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Then the horns kicked in...
...and my shoes began to squeak.