(Things like this should probably go to reddit's /r/hpmor...)
It was originally a reader suggestion by DarkHeart81 in a review on Ch. 11:
Some interesting stuff in this. Though the sorting hat yell out something totally random like 'Pickled stew berry!' or 'Khan!' like in Star Trek II. Or... Well there's a lot of stuff the hat could have yelled out. lol
So it's meant to be 'totally random'.
We're currently translating chapter 11 into German. It's going along fine, but
is still puzzling us. No dictionary entries, no HPMoR-unrelated search hits, nothing…
Is this some kind of dadaist joke by Eliezer? Or are we missing something?