Comments | puella_deville: Muggle me this

puella_deville

Muggle me this

Oct 11, 2003 11:18

So il_mago refused to tell me what a Muggle is. But a Google search surprised me into going OOC -- I had no idea that the word's been accepted into the OED.

( Draft definition and some ruminations on word origins and politically correct speech )

Comments 5

isiscolo October 11 2003, 12:12:25 UTC

Hee. I love your speculations, here. We're Muggle and We're Here!

vileseagulls October 11 2003, 17:12:34 UTC

You actually literally made me spit coke over the monitor. God.

"shit in your breakfast" indeed!

puella_deville October 12 2003, 06:56:21 UTC

Heeh, sorry about your monitor. It's true, though!

tinderblast October 12 2003, 06:00:59 UTC

The official definition isn't very satisfying, is it? It seems to forget the fact that there's another species of people without magic - Squibs - who aren't Muggles. Muggle thus means something more along the lines of human, non-magic, and not part of the wizarding community or expected to have magical ability. All of which is very unwieldy.

The idea of the re-appropriation and 'owning' of the term Muggle cracks me up. Given the general level of apathy towards protecting or expanding rights in the wizarding world (the latest casualty being werewolves, with Umbridge's propositions curtailing their ability to work) I think it would take a Muggle-born like Hermione to actually do anything, as the 'purebloods' don't appear to have a problem with the terminology or the patronising benevolence/seething tolerance that tends to be shown to Muggles.

-brodie

puella_deville October 12 2003, 07:00:48 UTC

Given the general level of apathy towards protecting or expanding rights in the wizarding world (the latest casualty being werewolves, with Umbridge's propositions curtailing their ability to work) I think it would take a Muggle-born like Hermione to actually do anything, as the 'purebloods' don't appear to have a problem with the terminology or the patronising benevolence/seething tolerance that tends to be shown to Muggles.

I agree. But even Hermione's (or any other Muggle-born's) efforts would probably not raise much of a stir, since wizarding society as a whole doesn't seem terribly concerned with such issues. The problematic depiction of magical race relations in the MoM fountain (I was so happy to see Dumbledore take that thing apart, albeit inadvertently) is another example of a similar supremacist bias.