Interesting...

I wasn't sure if my last reveiw went through, so i thought i'd make another to be sure:

Crocky,

I LOVED this part of the story as much as the first part!

I was very upset with how people were treating Severus and I wanted to jump into your story and help the kid. This story was very emotional, excellent work! My eyes watered at the end because it was so upsetting.

I'm off to read third year!

Beth

P.S. I'll be sure to reveiw!

Dear Suzy,

thanks for your detailed though rather repetitive reviews on the subject of the Scottish accent. The way I let Minerva speak has been criticised before, but believe it or not, I put some thought into how to write it and there are good reasons to stand by it. First of all, though, I have to say that, yes, as an ex-student of Glasgow University, I do, in fact, know what the Scottish accent sounds like.

You are right claiming that Minerva's speech isn't consistent with a variety spoken in one particular area. This is mostly due to the fact that a person can travel a lot in 75 years, and even more if she has a father who is a practical historian. In that case, you will realise, one can travel through time and encounter all sorts of accents, even for prolonged periods of time. Which is what Minerva has done in this fanfic's universe.

You claim that no one you know speaks this way although they are Scottish. This has two reasons, I believe.

One is that you probably weren't born 75 years ago and that people in Minerva's youth (and birthplace) spoke differently from the way you and your friends speak now. In 1920, accents were overall much stronger that what we are used to now, partly due to a lack of television input, and they must have been yet stronger within the pureblood wizarding society, who even now speak in a highly anachronistic, sort of Jane Austen fashion ninety percent of the time. In my head, Scottish witches and wizards in the early 20th century spoke Scots. Probably a very old variety of it, too.

The other reason why my way of writing Minerva's speech doesn't work for you, I think, is that you are very likely reading the accent wrong. In order to illustrate a development in Minerva's self-image and identity, I am "spelling out" features of her speech as English people would perceive them. The basic way of writing I chose is quite in accordance with the MacDiarmid standard you find when reading Lallans. And while I realise that Lallans is an artificial construct, I have to say that I found it the best consistent source for dialect writing that could be used for my purposes. Unfortunately, however, using Scotticised speech in written texts is also a method, which has been used quite frequently by other (published) authors to create a stereotypically dumb character or to poke fun of "the country folk". This, I think, is working against my plans of writing out Minerva's speech. It is not the way I write it that makes it appear stereotyped and insulting. It's people's way of perceiving it.

Just out of interest, though - do you find JK's Hagrid insulting? Because he says "yer", which you claim no one uses. What I would also be interested in is what variety you speak. Not the Edinburgh remains of Morningside, surely?

What you have to ask yourself is - do you mind the effect accent writing has on the appearance of the character or do you actually have something against the individual phrases I used based on you knowing where they come from and me incorrectly placing them? Because that might well be. I did use a bit of a jigsaw method in places, due to not having been born in 1920 myself.

On account of Snape's and Lupin's characterisation, I believe your idea is wrong while mine is right. But for a detailed explanation of that, please leave a SIGNED review next time.

Thanks.

thats ridiculous Remus was the only one of them (in the books) that called snape by his first name and didn't hate him, he wouldn't have been the one to come up with that name, not on purpose anyway and he certainly wouldn't grin at it, your totally making him OCC plus please stop making snape look like a whiny baby it's very annoying, i like the story but it's getting beyond iritating!

'Off wi ye noo' made me actaully cringe and want to shoot myself will you stop it, her accent is making me flinch its so damn bad and it makes you want to tear your own hair out, that is NOT a scottish accent its a complete insult to us, really its so bad and i dunno what accent she is suppose to have because it is far from being scottish, we barely even have accents at all, we certainly don't talk anything like that dribble 'wi ye noo' that is beyond even funny and makes me want to throw up every time she talks like that it's so bad 'noo' no one talks like that bejond joking 'wi' WHAT THE HELL DOE STHAT MEAN and ye thats not even a word and combining the three makes it look so awful i'm surprised her students heads havn't exploded with the awful sound (i know we read it and don't hear it but readin it sort of makes you hear the words in your head as yu read them *no i'm not crazy* but really please stop her from it, her studentas should bloody well attack her for such abuse to our accents! we don't even have bloody accents so quit bashing it!)

i only just noticed this and it made me laugh out loud 'Get oot yer quills' where is the McGonigall of this story suppose to be from, you cannot seriously believe that is a scottish accent, ths is a really great story but please stop her accent, listening her has to be torture i'm surprised so many of her class havn't already gagged her, uh that 'accen't is extremely iritating! O o

i am actually insulted 'but might I ask ye tae keep yer mind on yer studies? Where's your flea?' is that suppose to be her speaking scottish, i'm scottish and we never speak anything like that unless someone is doing a parody of the accent plus in the next line james says something about not having started on his 'pea' yet i think you meant 'flea' anyway apart from that this story is rather great apart from the fact that you make snape very wimpy and a total cry baby i mean he wouldn't be like that i don't think he would be that weak, also please stop insulting the scottish seriously you aretotally bashing us with that absolutly awful 'accent' of hers, she wouldn't sepak like that anyway, it's just insulting 'yer' people just don't speak like that, ever, and 'tae' is that suppose to mean to, i mean i'm scottish and seriously you have clearly never met anyone with a scottish accent unless you are bashing it and therefore i really would be insulted not that it matters much as it's only an accent but it's extremely wannoying everytime she says 'tah' 'ye' or 'yer' nobody ever talks like that, i even asked my mum around when scottish people may have talked like that and she had never even heard of anyone saying them while talking, i'm a teen by the way not a sad person libing with their mother :) no offence to anyone who is and before you comment on the fact that my 'mum' doesn't know everything, i definetly know that i have lived almost my entire life in scotand and no one has ever talked anything like that, plus the way you write it sounds awful no offence it's just every time she says teh or yer i want to rip my hair out, i'm not crazy or anything but it's just so annoying. kl story though i like it i just hope you change her accent seriously it sounds so bad 'reading it' it makes your teeth curl, lol it's realy iritating so please quit it, anyway its a great story just please tone down how much severus crys i really don't thin he would ever run crying to lucius and am ven less convinced that lucius would actually help and not curse the boy for waking him up, it's a brilliant story apart from that though and i look forward to reading the next (apart from McGongals weird speech disorder, maybe she was cursed in this story, was she?)

And now, the unwitting cruelty of teachers.

It was so painful to read about Sirius' casual destruction of Severus' homework, when Severus thinks those letters home actually make his mom worse, that I had to stop reading for awhile. A brilliant depiction of how basically good people can be so unspeakably cruel, without even realizing it.

no more?

My, it was so peaceful that I'd better get myself in a VERY suspicious mode before the next chapter :)

Politics in there dynamics - always enjoyable :)

It's come a bit of a shock though that those *children* went so far already and without a hint of fear (or, Merlin save us, remorse).

Can't help but compare them to poor strugling Draco in HBP :)

So, the Black clan has been very well informed about Dumbledore's private matters... then again, if it's been Lance Snape playing the fate's hand...

Gotta read a bit further now to find who tried to poison Dumbledore :)

OMG... Another subplot's brewing :)

P.S. Very acute observation about Fidelius being an "evil" spell - the ways it could be (and has been) twisted seem to be countless...

I suppose this is what counts as a (semi-)normal Cristmas for Severus :(

Well... at least it shows that Lance still has some human side left in him...

...and that ghost (disease?) is trully disturbing - wish I knew more about him (alas, you know by now that I'm a slow reader :)