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Wizards and WWII

To: alt.fan.harry-potter
From: Trond Michelsen 
Subject: Re: Wizards and WWII
Date: Wed, 14 May 2003 23:35:35 GMT

Troels Forchhammer  wrote in
news:3EC2B1B8.8168BCE9@ThisIsFake.dk: 

>> Only if we assume that "fifty years ago" has to mean *exactly* fifty
>> years ago. If I said that it's been sixty years since WWII started,
>> would you assume that I thought it started 14th May 1943?
> Ron polishing Tom Riddle's special award implies later to Harry
> that it's 'exactly' 50 years ago (meaning the academic year - 
> Tom would have received his award towards the end of the academic
> year while Ron polished it in the start - i.e. a little more than
> 49 years later).

I don't follow.

Are you talking about these paragraphs?

--8<--
Harry saw at once that it was a diary, and the faded year on the cover
told him it was fifty years old. He opened it eagerly. On the first page
he could just make out the name "T M. Riddle" in smudged ink.

"Hang on," said Ron, who had approached cautiously and was looking
over Harry's shoulder. "I know that name .... T. M. Riddle got an
award for special services to the school fifty years ago."

"How on earth d'you know that?" said Harry in amazement.

"Because Filch made me polish his shield about fifty times in
detention," said Ron resentfully. "That was the one I burped slugs all
over. If you'd wiped slime off a name for an hour, you'd remember it,
too."
--8<--

I still don't understand how Ron's "fifty years ago" is an exact number.
Granted, he says "about fifty times" when he's talking about how many 
times he had to polish it, but that doesn't make "fifty years" any less 
of an approximate number. When he says that he polished it for an hour, 
does that mean exactly 3600 seconds, or could it have been fifty minutes?

If the award was from 1946, would Ron really have said "T.M. Riddle got 
an award for special services to the school, uhm, hang on... fortyseven 
years ago."? Or would he still have said "fifty years ago"?

Remind me, how many references are there to the chamber being opened 
fifty years ago? In addition to Ron's comment and the age of the diary, I 
can only think of Malfoy's comment

--8<--
"And Father won't tell me anything about the last time the Chamber was 
opened either. Of course, it was fifty years ago, so it was before his 
time, [...]"
--8<--

There are also a couple of passing references to "people of fifty years 
ago" and "fifty years younger Dumbledore" during the diary-sequence, but 
these are all based on how long ago Harry thinks it is.

Oh yeah, Tom Riddle claims to have been preserved in the diary for fifty 
years.

Hmm, what more. Oh, Dumbledore has something to say too.

--8<--
"Very few people know that Lord Voldemort was once called Tom
Riddle. I taught him myself, fifty years ago, at Hogwarts.
--8<--

I guess that means that Dumbledore either stopped teaching after that 
year, or Riddle didn't take Transfiguration in his seventh year. 

I'm sorry, but there's nothing in here to suggest (at least not to me) 
that "fifty years ago" isn't an approximation. I'd accept "fiftytwo years 
ago" as an exact number, though. 

-- 
Trond Michelsen

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