For all you Harry Potter fans…
JK Rowling has taught us many things over the years from introducing us to the words “Muggle” and “Quidditch”, to her subtle warning that sucking up to the school bully will eventually end with you getting burned in a fire.
She’s been in the headlines in recent weeks for her fiery clashes with Piers Morgan but the big news for her in the last six months was the release of the latest movie in the Harry Potter universe, Fantastic Beasts and Where To Find Them.
The movie has gone down a storm with Harry Potter lovers who are suffering from withdrawals since the books and the original movies ended.
One word in particular from the latest movie may have stuck in your head. “Choranaptyxic,” Rowling’s name for the ability of the bird-snake hybrid Occamy to grow and shrink to fit its surroundings.
In a recent interview with Entertainment Weekly, Rowling explained the origin of the word.
“I thought it was a real thing,” Rowling said. I had been told in my youth that fish only grow to the size that’s available. So I was confident of this and thought there will be a term for a creature that only grows to the available space.
“But then I looked it all up and I found to my horror that fish remain stunted if the water quality is poor so they don’t have that quality at all. So I had to coin this phrase because I’d conceived of this creature that could shrink or grow according to the available space.”
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