Ive spoken with quite a few Russians and they always tell me that whether youre from Moscow or Vladvostok, most people barely have any accent. Unless you are from Dagestan or something, its pretty hard to notice any difference. Why is that so?
British English (and before someone is pedantic I mean the typical RP London accent), is overall seem as classier and many people prefer it. In the US there was a period that rich people even invented an artificial accent that sounded a bit more British, the famous Transatlantic accent that you can see in old movies.
French Ive always hear people making fun of the Quebecoi accent and saying some pretty negative things about it
Spanish although people dont trash the Latij American accents, people still often view the European one, specially Castilla as more sophisticated.
But with Portuguese, thats not the case at all. Ive never seen the European version being described as classier or people liking it more.
I think the book presents it as them being crazy and unfair to Harry, but I really think they had valid reasons and I strongly believe that Harry would probably behave similarly or even worse than them.
Basically they hear the guy speaking to Snakes, they know he hates the muggles who raised him, and everyone attacked by that point had some drama with Harry.
Okay, but then, Harry hears them thinking hes the heir of Slythering on the look for Justin Fletchey. What does he do? Barks in angry demanding them to tell where to find Justin. What the hell did he expect then to do? I have no doubt that Harry in their position would also try to not reveal where a friend is. I meam, he drugged and impersonated people based purely on suspicion, all they did was talk about and try to protect a friend.
And to their credit, after Hermione was attacked, they realise they were wrong and apologise to them.
Okay, this one is a bit convoluted, so Ill have to give multiple examples, Im sure some will be obvious and agreeable to most people, but others might not be.
"America is a country, not a continent/Yankee is only someone from the North/New England"
America can refer to the continent or to the country. Yankee can refer to someone from the region, to a baseball team or someone from the US as a whole. Both are words with multiple meanings, and both usage cases are valid. We can have our preferences of course, and I guess sometimes we might have to clarify and try to use the most appropriate vocabulary for a given situation, but none is really wrong per se.
I remember sometimes seeing overtly enthusiastic people saying "Newtonian physics is wrong". But its not. Newtonian physics has the goal of explaining certain phenomena, and it explains them perfectly well. Other phenomena are not explained by it, but this doesnt make Newtonian physics wrong, just a bit restricted and not as precise. If we were coherently talking like that, everything would be "wrong".
"A tomato is a fruit man, dont be ignorant"
There aee different classifications that use the term tomato. In the casual, culinary sense, a tomato is not a fruit. In the botanical classification, a tomato is a fruit, just like nuts and corn kernels. Its not wrong to say a tomato or a nut are not a fruits. They are just different classifications, and unless youre really obtuse, you should understand that well.
"You saying Poland/Czechia are in Eastern Europe shows your ignorance and bigotry"
Saw a lot of that sadly. There are many different geopolitical and geographical classifications. In some definitions, Czechia and Poland are part of Eastern Europe, in others, they are part of another entity called Central Europe. None is wrong or right, they are just different classifications.
Sorry for the long ramble, but I just had that in mind ans wanted to complain a bit. Im sure there are multiple other examples
This is a thing that I notice more from people from the US, and some parte of Northern Europe, that there are a few words that they consider to be inherently evil regardless of context. Now, I understand that some words are used a lot to offended and should be avoided. However, when I cannot say them even to say they are bad, I think weve got to bizarre problematic levels. For example, let's say tomato was one of those words. People don't even feel comfortable saying "tomato is an offensive word, you should not use it", they have to say "the T word is a bad word that should not be said in any context". Sometimes it's even detrimental to communication, I once saw someone talking about the g-slur and I had no idea what the hell they were talking about.
For real, I find this beyond stupid. Words don't exist by themselves, they exist in a context. For me it's such a puritan thing, don't say the name of the devia or he'll appear. Harry Potter Voldemort that who shall not be named kind of stuff. It's a social convention that I find really nonsensical.
I see a lot of people complain about stuff like unalive or grape, and I think most agree that it's a stupid thing. But I don't get why some words being such inherent taboos, even if I'm just reporting about their existence, or maybe reporting that someone said that, is such a default and well accepted view.