Surprising word choices!

[frozen-jelly.livejournal.com]

I am so loving this rpg, its so intriguing to follow a game right from the start and really wonder about all the little clues thrown to us, fantastic! Thanks all players!

I try not to Brit-pick, but some things really throw you out of the HP world... Today I noticed Lucius used the word 'nonce' in the title of his post recent post. Last week Molly used it in one of her entries. This completely threw me, the first time I saw it because in the UK a nonce is a slang term to refer to a paedophile! :S I actually had to look it up to discover it had a meaning that referred to time! Just wondered if anyone else was initially off-put by that word.

Comments

[emony.livejournal.com]

LOL, me too. I always wonder if it's just me not knowing a word, or if it's a northern term or something. "Bullocks" was the other one - that just made me laugh though ;)

[frozen-jelly.livejournal.com]

haha! Yes that was very amusing! I was just imagining - Sirius, I think it was? - coming across a field and describing what was in front of him, somewhat randomly. :)

Study hall was another clanger, as Harry Potter has its basics in boarding school stories it shoudl really be Prep. Not that I noticed any mention of any communal, enforced homework-ing in the books. There was a slight reference to someone 'revising' the work they had done in some subject too, which made me think there was an upcoming exam. But I think it was meant as 'studying' rather than 're-learning in order to pass exams' as I would think of the word being used.

[emony.livejournal.com]

Ah, yes, study hall. I seem to remember in the books, when they got to fourth year and chose their OWLS, Ron got very excited about the prospect of free periods, which always implied to me that in first to third years they had a full timetable.

That said, this is Britain under the Lord Protector. Maybe He watched a lot of Saved by the Bell in His younger days, and made some changes at Hogwarts when He'd consolidated His power. You never know ;)

[frozen-jelly.livejournal.com]

Yes of course! :) I can't believe they got free periods so early on at school I had my first free period when I was 17 :S Clearly my timetable was more like Hermione's than Ron's!

[alt_moderator]

I actually did know about this, but in the books it's pretty clear that they have at least some afternoons free. We worked out their schedules to harmonise as closely with the books as we could, and there was just no way around it. What would they call it?

[frozen-jelly.livejournal.com]

Wednesday afternoons are traditionally spent playing sports, so that tends to be a free one in many schools. It makes it easier to schedule matches with other schools that way. Similarly no one wants to do any work on Friday afternoons so many schools finish one/two periods early then - depending on how many periods you have in your school day, how long your breaks are, whether the school timetable has 5 or ten minutes allocated for moving classrooms in between periods - it varies from place to place.

I can't think of how you would refer to it, just as free periods really. But you wouldn't expect any lower school to have any at all. Ron has some in the books because he drops some previously compulsory subjects, and only takes the minimum required amount of OWLs. But there would be unlikely to be any specific place for them to go and work, perhaps the library or an empty classroom, maybe they would be expected to return to their common room. Its not really clear in the books what they do in these situations! But there would not be a clearly defined timetabled period called 'study hall'.

[alt_moderator]

Well, it sounds like we have the schedule itself right - just possibly the way that someone referred to it was wrong. Perhaps I'll post the schedule of classes as a "special edition" on alt-fen at some point. But that's totally consonant with what I've got down for Hogwarts, so :)

[alt-player.livejournal.com]

Hey, adults are allowed the occasional typo. Just because Sirius is clever and dashing doesn't mean he has perfekt spellyng.

Or mayhape he were quothing olde style spellynge, when it was a matter or opinion. :D

[alt-player.livejournal.com]

Er ... a matter of opinion.

See? Typo.

[frozen-jelly.livejournal.com]

Oh absolutely, but it still made me laugh :)

[alt_moderator]

Please do Brit-pick! We have a couple of Brits on board, but they can't do duty for everyone, and everyone misses things sometimes. We can't guarantee we'll always remember - the heat of RP sometimes makes it difficult to remember, for one thing! - but we'll certainly try. :)

[frozen-jelly.livejournal.com]

Oh really? I know it can come across as critical when people point out errors, but often its something so utterly ingongruous that really confuses me! As the above examples show. I don't know how one could suggest un-British elements in a un-blatant post over here. Any ideas? Maybe email would be more appropriate, something like 'just to let you know, most schools don't let anyone who doesn't absolutely have to, have free periods because they will just graffiti the toilets/go into town etc so even gaps in timetables will be filled by stuff like PSHE and form time. There are rarely study periods as such, sixth formers may use their free periods to study, in the library but they are more likely to hang out in the common room and eat chocolate buttons with their friends instead. ' Ahh, I don't like to come off as nit-picky or critical...

[alt_moderator]

No worries! If it really bothers you, you can send comments to alt-moderator@livejournal.com and I'll pass them on to the players. :)