Y'know...

Subject: Y'know...
Author: Neshomeh
Posted on: 2015-02-09 22:24:00 UTC

I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but not capitalizing "house" isn't uniformly wrong. I mean, yes, House Gryffindor, Slytherin House, etc., but Professor McGonagall helpfully covers a lot of contexts in which it's not capitalized: "The four houses are called Gryffindor, Hufflepuff, Ravenclaw, and Slytherin. Each house has its own noble history ... . While you are at Hogwarts, your triumphs will earn your house points, while any rule-breaking will lose house points. At the end of the year, the house with the most points is awarded the house cup, a great honor. I hope each of you will be a credit to whichever house becomes yours" (Sorcerer's Stone, Scholastic Press, 1998, p. 114, emphasis added).

It seems to be generally pretty inconsistent, in fact. Snape is "Head of Slytherin House" (135), but at the end of the book, Dumbledore says "I award Gryffindor house fifty points" (305) a few times.

Maybe they changed it in later books/editions, but that's what I've got right in front of me in the first place I'd choose to look. So, er, sorry? {= (

~Neshomeh

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Some clarification requested on minis. by PoorCynic on 2015-02-09 17:08:00 UTC Reply

Is spawning a mini from not capitalizing a proper noun a relatively new thing, or has that always been since minis were first created? I feel like I've been seeing that more and more recently. I'm a little bothered by it, to tell the truth. It feels like an artificial way to create minis. Mini creations should be reserved for legitimate misspellings, like Boromire or Herminoe. I would argue that improper capitalization is more an error of punctuation.

Beyond my request for clarification, what are your thoughts on this? Am I just being weird about this?

I thought I was the only one! by EileenAlphabet on 2015-02-10 09:30:00 UTC Reply

Yeah, I agree. For me it feels a bit silly to get minis from failing to capitalize. It nice to know I'm not the only one who have had that thought.
I don't write minis who spawn that way. I either charge for not using proper capitalization or for general abuse of SPaG if there are other mistakes and leave it at that.

I feel the same way about minis created by using plural rather than possessive s. And minis created by missing commas. Long Table Elrond is a superfun creation and much more interesting than simply going 'and there's another mini'.

Same here! by Hieronymus Graubart on 2015-02-10 14:26:00 UTC Reply

A lot of what happens on missions probably depends on perception, like Huinesoron suggested further down. If I ever get to writing missions, my agents will certainly not expect to see capitalization or punctuation minis, so they will probably never find any. But they will think very hard about which pieces of PPC technology are powered by phlebotinum or are at least sufficiently undefined to function at Hogwarts.

BTW, the Uncanonical Department of Inaccuracies needs to talk to you. May I send you an e-mail? (I found your address on another thread.)

HG

Sure, send it over. (nm) by EileenAlphabet on 2015-02-11 20:48:00 UTC Reply

Punctuation Minis by LonelyStar on 2015-02-10 04:08:00 UTC Reply

Somehow I managed to get from "is a capitalization error worthy of a mini" to "there should be punctuation error minis, or something".

Someone lend me a lasso for runaway trains of thought...

Re: Punctuation Minis by Miah on 2015-02-10 04:49:00 UTC Reply

I think it depends on the punctuation error. I did that in one mission that had horrible punctuation, but the reason was largely because I wanted to include a scene of dumping a pack of minis on the adoption center, and I don't think I'd do it again, because they make punctuating while writing about them difficult.

How do you make a list of these:

Cane,Helen
Way;Helen
You,Helen
Gym;John
It,John

You really can't, especially since it was a mix of semi-colons and commas.

The one named John Dont (missing apostrophe, added capital) was a much better mini, I think, even though it was largely based on punctuation, too. Big Guys and Helens aren't too bad either, although those could have been taken as errors that created copies, none of which owned whatever it was the possessive was being used for in the story.

Anyway, my point is that like capitalization minis most punctuation minis end up causing headaches for the PPC writer trying to not begin a sentence with that non-capped mini-ever, or to punctuate a mini who has stray commas in its name.

I'm of two minds. by Neshomeh on 2015-02-09 21:48:00 UTC Reply

On the one hand, incorrect orthography is incorrect. I think we'd certainly have a mini on our hands if someone messed up the capitalization in the middle of a name. For example, FrOdo would be a Frodo mini, and I'd certainly consider D'argo to be a D'Argo mini.

On the other hand, I don't ever want to be in a position of having to weigh clearly referring to a mini vs. a real character against correctly capitalizing the first word of a sentence. Damn you, capitalization, and your ambiguous place in spelling/grammar.

Ultimately, I think I'm with hS on this one. I'm perfectly happy to ignore minis in favor of more interesting/less finicky charges.

~Neshomeh
I agree with you. by Huinesoron on 2015-02-09 19:03:00 UTC Reply

It's been around for at least a few years now, but it does feel pretty silly. (Note that Miss Cam doesn't list any)

But... well, given that no-one's reading the original fic, I just ignore minis I don't want in my stories (big reveal, that ^_^). As long as people don't keep adding them just as word-drops, but actually use their minis, I think it's justifiable as artistic licence.

Or, and this is a personal theory, mini manifestation is linked to perception anyway. If someone thinks lowercase should make a mini, it does. If they think it shouldn't, it won't. And if they're not aware that minis form, they won't see them at all. (This may also tie into the fandoms with multiple types of mini...)

hS

Oh, good. by Iximaz on 2015-02-09 19:32:00 UTC Reply

I don't want to go back and retcon a bunch of stuff. >D Besides, ten million minis in a row can get pretty amusing.

Would already-existing lowercase minis stay in existance? Because people not capitalizing 'House' in HP fics annoys the crap out of me, and I want to bring house back sometime.

But I will avoid doing that from now on. I've always thought lowercase letters spawned minis, but... *shrugs*

Y'know... by Neshomeh on 2015-02-09 22:24:00 UTC Reply

I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but not capitalizing "house" isn't uniformly wrong. I mean, yes, House Gryffindor, Slytherin House, etc., but Professor McGonagall helpfully covers a lot of contexts in which it's not capitalized: "The four houses are called Gryffindor, Hufflepuff, Ravenclaw, and Slytherin. Each house has its own noble history ... . While you are at Hogwarts, your triumphs will earn your house points, while any rule-breaking will lose house points. At the end of the year, the house with the most points is awarded the house cup, a great honor. I hope each of you will be a credit to whichever house becomes yours" (Sorcerer's Stone, Scholastic Press, 1998, p. 114, emphasis added).

It seems to be generally pretty inconsistent, in fact. Snape is "Head of Slytherin House" (135), but at the end of the book, Dumbledore says "I award Gryffindor house fifty points" (305) a few times.

Maybe they changed it in later books/editions, but that's what I've got right in front of me in the first place I'd choose to look. So, er, sorry? {= (

~Neshomeh

What edition do you have? by Iximaz on 2015-02-09 22:52:00 UTC Reply

Because I have one of the earlier American editions, and flipping through the pages at random, I'm only seeing capital H House.

The copyright page says... by Neshomeh on 2015-02-09 23:49:00 UTC Reply

First American edition, October 1998.

If you've got the same one, you can check the page numbers I gave. Otherwise, you can still probably find the same passages for comparison easily enough.

~Neshomeh

Huh, that's the exact edition I have. by Iximaz on 2015-02-10 00:02:00 UTC Reply

And yeah, looking over it... huh.

Welp, there goes my reputation as Head Potterhead. *crawls into a corner and sobs quietly*

*offers hugs* by Neshomeh on 2015-02-10 00:57:00 UTC Reply

It's okay. You are now more knowledgeable than you were before. Reputation secure. {= )

Anyway, no one's ever above being corrected. I once misspelled "intelligence" at a crucial moment and got called on it. I was embarrassed for about... oh, forever. And I learned to always double-check, because Murphy's brother Muphry is always lurking, ready to pop out and make you look silly just when you're trying to be your most serious.

~Neshomeh

*accepts hugs* by Iximaz on 2015-02-10 01:08:00 UTC Reply

Thank you for expanding (albeit also shattering) my worldview. :P

I'm not banned from playing Harry Potter Trivia in Harry Potter Club at my school for nothing! >D

I didn't say they didn't. by Huinesoron on 2015-02-09 21:34:00 UTC Reply

In fact, since people keep writing it in missions, they self-evidently do.

All I meant to say was that I don't think it's a very sensible idea, and I don't use it when I'm writing. But I'm just me! I'm not the Official Opinion Creator or anything. You're quite free to disagree with me.

hS
Re: Oh, good. by Voyd on 2015-02-09 19:55:00 UTC Reply

Improper capitalization created most of the minis in my first mission.

I actually used the minis, too. Well, the mini-Suus anyway. I didn't think that Suu by herself would be big enough to consume the Alex Mercer replacement.

I kinda like the idea of using a swarm of minis to dispose of a Sue. I like swarms.

... why yes, I do favor the Zerg in StarCraft.

Kekeke.