Just a lurker dropping a note saying how much I'm enjoying the series. The story is moving right along, the characters are a lot of fun, and the style is appropriate for fan fiction. (Just joking with that last one - wanted to give a shout out to the Inverarity(tm) weighted scale of rating stories
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Something I just caught this chapter... You refer to Thalia as Ms. King rather than Mrs. On the one hand, she's not married to a Mr. King and being called Miss King when she has children is somewhat awkward. On the other hand, I have trouble seeing the much more traditional wizarding world using the modern term Ms. Maybe an older-fashioned term such as Mistress King would be a better alternative?
Re: Ms. vs Mrs.inverarityApril 17 2010, 00:59:58 UTC
"Ms." has actually been around for centuries, though it only became popular as a marriage-neutral term in the 1970s.
We know from Ms. Shirtliffe and Ms. Grimm that "Ms." is not unheard of among witches, so apparently Muggle traditions do seep slowly into the wizarding world.
Although traditionally, divorced women often kept their ex-husband's surname, Thalia obviously would not want to be known as "Mrs. Thorn." "Mistress King" is possible, but sounds very old-fashioned, even for wizards. Thus, I figure she adopted the modern convention (which might indeed make her something of a radical, for the society she is in.)
I believe "Aunt" is used in Britain in ways that aren't as common in the U.S. Alexandra calling her father's ex-wife "Aunt" wouldn't be completely implausible, but it's not really the norm.
I think it's regional in the US. I grew up in the mid-Atlantic region calling a lot of my parents' friends Aunt X and Uncle Y. I used to know a girl from Hawaii and there apparently Auntie and Uncle are used as terms of respect for any older person.
I feel pretty sure that in the UK (and in Italy too, if that matters), if someone like Thalia King were to admit the youngest child of her ex to her own family circle, and do it as whole-heartedly as she obviously has, one of the first things she would do would be to say "please, call me Thalia". Family members use the first name.
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We know from Ms. Shirtliffe and Ms. Grimm that "Ms." is not unheard of among witches, so apparently Muggle traditions do seep slowly into the wizarding world.
Although traditionally, divorced women often kept their ex-husband's surname, Thalia obviously would not want to be known as "Mrs. Thorn." "Mistress King" is possible, but sounds very old-fashioned, even for wizards. Thus, I figure she adopted the modern convention (which might indeed make her something of a radical, for the society she is in.)
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-So this is real life...
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Rhemus
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