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Hi, Anton Shepelev!
I read your message from 22.12.2025 12:25

(Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets)

 AK>> What was the good of magicking himself out of his
 AK>> room if Hogwarts would expel him for doing it?
 AS> I think literary English requires "doing so" instead of
 AS> "doint it".

IMHO you are sometimes too strict about English. It was Rowling after all, not
me. And we should remember immortal Bart Simpson's saying "I didn't do it!" ;-)

 AK>> Now that the Dursleys knew they weren't going to
 AK>> wake up as fruit bats, he had lost his only weapon.

 AS> I never read any of the Harry Potter books, but
 AS> this sentence seems to refer to a threatened or
 AS> impending punishment by magic in a generic manner,
 AS> i.e. by turning one into a fruit bat.

Unlikely. If she wrote about fruit flies it sounded well in England. But as
for "fruit bats"....

Bye, Anton!
Alexander Koryagin
english_tutor 2025

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