Yes, understatement. I'm not sure what probability you should have attached.
They celebrate Christmas.
It's possible that they invented scrolls for themselves, but I'm not counting on it.
IIRC, they use the Roman alphabet, or at least I don't remember British muggle students having to learn a different alphabet.
Their spells show an influence from Latin.
Hogwarts resembles a British public school.
They speak English, even if words relating to technology and science are absent.
They use a train.
Faint memory: didn't they have a statue in plate armor?
Clothing.
Crockery.
Shelters, both portable and permanent (masonry, carpentry, and textile)
Prepared foods (despite divergence).
Eye glasses.
The custom of men shaving their faces
The custom of women being more likely than men to have long hair (not actually sure about this one for adults, but it seems to apply to the children)
Theater.
It is a difficult thing to make a complete list. Days later I'm sure I'll have twenty more if I didn't hear of a better puzzle.
The next discussion thread is here.
This is a new thread to discuss Eliezer Yudkowsky’s Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality and anything related to it. This thread is intended for discussing chapter 84. The previous thread has passed 500 comments. Comment in the 14th thread until you read chapter 84.
There is now a site dedicated to the story at hpmor.com, which is now the place to go to find the authors notes and all sorts of other goodies. AdeleneDawner has kept an archive of Author’s Notes. (This goes up to the notes for chapter 76, and is now not updating. The authors notes from chapter 77 onwards are on hpmor.com.)
The first 5 discussion threads are on the main page under the harry_potter tag. Threads 6 and on (including this one) are in the discussion section using its separate tag system. Also: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14.
As a reminder, it’s often useful to start your comment by indicating which chapter you are commenting on.
Spoiler Warning: this thread is full of spoilers. With few exceptions, spoilers for MOR and canon are fair game to post, without warning or rot13. More specifically: