{"id":5970,"date":"2018-02-06T16:33:17","date_gmt":"2018-02-06T12:33:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/englishbookgeorgia.com\/blogebg\/?p=5970"},"modified":"2018-02-06T16:33:17","modified_gmt":"2018-02-06T12:33:17","slug":"reveiled-how-harry-potter-has-shaped-the-way-we-speak","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/englishbookgeorgia.com\/blogebg\/reveiled-how-harry-potter-has-shaped-the-way-we-speak\/","title":{"rendered":"Reveiled: How Harry Potter has shaped the way we speak?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Calling all muggles and mudbloods, dementors and squibs,<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

The boy wizard\u2019s first adventure hit our bookshelves in 1997, and has had a huge influence on all aspects of popular culture.<\/p>\n

But what about the way we speak? To mark the anniversary the Cambridge University Press has looked into the many words invented by JK Rowling, to find out how deep an effect her Wizarding World has had.<\/p>\n

\"260838-H3_tvr0163577\"<\/p>\n

Matt Norton, CUP\u2019s resident language researcher, donned his cloak to analyse data from the Cambridge English Corpus, a multi-billion word collection of contemporary spoken and written English, to find out the \u2018Potterverse\u2019 words that have made their way into everyday dialogue.<\/p>\n

In a blog on the CUP website, he says: \u201cI use corpus linguistics to examine how the world of Harry Potter \u2013 or the \u2018Potterverse\u2019 \u2013 has influenced English with new words invented by Rowling (\u201ccoinings\u201d); her reusing of rare or obscure words; and changes to existing word usage.\u201d<\/p>\n

Many of the terms created by Rowling are examples of \u2018blend\u2019 words, made from fusing two existing words together.<\/p>\n

Terms like \u2018animagus\u2019, a blend of animal and magus (a kind of wizard, plural magi), and \u2018merpeople\u2019, blending from mer(maid) and people, are such examples.<\/p>\n

Matt said: \u201cSome of the words sound like parodies of English words, like \u2018Hogwarts\u2019, the name of Harry\u2019s \u2018School of Witchcraft and Wizardry \u2018, \u2018Hufflepuff\u2019 house or the game \u2018Quidditch\u2019.<\/p>\n

\u201cAlthough \u2018Hogwarts\u2019 sounds like a combination of hog and wart, there is also a plant called hogwort, which is a genuine English word, which may have also influenced this creation.<\/p>\n

\"032059-SL_cit0013415\"<\/p>\n

So it seems that the English language may have already contained Potterisms before Potter, but they were obscure or \u201chidden\u201d, a bit like how the magical world is hidden from humans in the Harry Potter series!\u201d<\/p>\n