Questions about English Grammars in Harry Potter Movies.

@SW-User i didn't know the "we" had an actual term, that's really cool!

@SW-User thanks, I didn’t know about the “royal we” at all!

And about the first one, I know that the past tense is used because it’s a hypothetical, but my question was why the order of “were” and “you” changes in the sentence…

@onewithshoes thanks for ur explanation! But my question of the first one was why the order of “you” and “were” changes in this sentence. Then is it correct to say “If were you rich, I would’ve stolen money from you!” instead of “if you were xxx”?

@Arukas3
No, the charge in word order is an alternate way of forcing the subjunctive reading when 'if' is not used.
When 'if' is used the normal subject-verb-object order prevails.

@onewithshoes thank you so much! I leaned a new thing from you today :)

@Arukas3 No, "If you were" is the correct word order.

"If were you" makes for a more confusing read.

@HootyTheNightOwl This is quite tricky… so if it is “I assure you [if] you were in Slytherin…”, the word order becomes “you were” ? And the word order changes because “that” is used instead of “if” in the actual sentence?

@Arukas3 "Were you" is a prefix to a question... like "Were you at the gym today?".

The word order is different because Snape doesn't want to know if the character is in Slytherin - he can tell that it's likely a Gryffindor because of the colour coded uniform.

He's saying "If you were" to acknowledge the fact that he is talking to a member of one of the other three houses. To phrase the statement any other way would suggest that he has some element of doubt in the event and he's trying to obtain further information "Were you in Slytherin common room after lights out tonight?" is a question.

"If you were in Slytherin common room after lights out tonight" leads you to the point where you can introduce consequences for actions that you don't agree with - which is what Snape is saying.

@Arukas3 not quite that way. Like everyone is different.

"All the world is a great big theater!"

@DeWayfarer okay, so when writing an essay or stuff like that we have to care about the grammar, but when speaking a language we shouldn’t care about the grammar mistakes since we all are different?

@Arukas3 again everyone is different. And in the real world few are actually grammatical correct. An author must attempt to put things just as the character puts it.

Hence why there are quotes around what is said. Noticed I put the above in quotes?

It's a literal. Someone did say:
"All the world is a great big theater".

If there was a grammatical mistake, it still would be correct. Because the person did say it with the grammar mistake.

This is a literal of your form of speech:


It's exactly how you said it!

There is grammar mistakes in it! Yet it's still correct for me to say as a quotation.

@Confined thanks! I understand that he used that to make him look more dramatic, but is it grammatically correct?

@Arukas3 I believe it is correct. It sounds a tad odd. He may have forgotten his line and just ab-libed a response, or maybe they thought just more dramatic.

@SW-User thanks! Ah, “grammar” was an uncountable noun…

Your explanation makes sense to me, so thanks a lot!

@ChipmunkErnie thanks! But do you mean it’s British English and we don’t use “that were you” in American English?

@Arukas3 Both use it, but I think it's more an an older usage that you don't see as often these days. But I'm American, though I do read and watch a lot of British material, so a Brit might have a different POV.

@spice1 I didn’t like Harry Potter either when I first watched some of the movies before, but I suddenly started to love it after I rewatched them again recently lol As a Japanese, I find English used in both of Harry Potter movies and books are quite difficult… even tho they are made for children.

@Arukas3 yes that's very true, I've never seen any of the movies but have watched all the fantastic beasts movies which I think are much better.

@spice1 I haven’t finished Fantastic Beasts yet! I will watch it tomorrow!

@Thevy29 yes obviously I’m obsessed with him😂 I’m watching his scenes over and over again lol

@Arukas3 Its not just that he was written very well. Alan Rickman gave a stellar performance. He was always so talented at playing bad guys.

@Thevy29 Indeed! I only know two movies in which he played a bad guy, but in both of them his acting was exceedingly amazing! And I love that Snape looks way too beautiful in movies because Alan Rickman plays him lol

@SW-User yea I know it’s not to be bound by grammar but i was just curious as an English learner…

@TxOutlawTyler It’s practically the first time for me to learn British English so it’s so fun that I can learn many new things XD

@RocktheHouse But Professor Snape, my book has only 393 pages…