Yes, many of those words and their role as class shibboleths are discussed in Fox's book as well. IIRC, according to her in some cases there are three levels; either three different words for one thing used in lower, middle and upper classes, or (matching the counter-signaling in the gnome story) the same word being used in the lowermost and the uppermost classes.

See also: Lent.

This seems related to Robin Hanson's concept of "pulling sideways",. Some questions (e.g. income tax levels or gay marriage) get privileged because the alternative answers align with pre-existing political coalitions, so they give people an opportunity to cheer for their side and against the Enemy, whereas other questions whose answers would involve "pulling sideways" are ignored.

Complete anarchy as the degenerate case of a government system?

Sleeping on the floor as the degenerate case when discussing different kinds of beds and mattresses?

Asexuality as the degenerate case of hetero/homo/bi sexuality?

I wonder where The Adventures of Tom Sawyer should be?

I say Gryffindor. Tom is obviously a Gryffindor, and though the tone of the book is somewhat mocking, he is nevertheless clearly the hero and triumphs in the end. (As far as I remember at least; I haven't read it since I was a child).

Yet Twain's ouvre spans all Houses: The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is Hufflepuff, A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court is Ravenclaw, and The Man That Corrupted Hadleyburg is Slytherin.

More discussion of it here.

I see your point, but I agree with Desrtopa's reply. I would go further and say that Arq'f ubabe abg bayl snvyrq gb cerirag pvivy jne, vg npgviryl pnhfrq vg (ol jneavat Prefrv bs jung ur unq qvfpbirerq, naq yngre erwrpgvat Erayl'f naq Yvggyrsvatre'f zber frafvoyr cynaf sbe nibvqvat one). So I think he makes more sense as an example for Slytherins of how Gryffindor values are foolish and counterproductive.

The Strategy of Conflict is in both Slytherin and Gryffindor. I guess Jesse had two copies.

Most fantasy books might be Gryffindor, but A Game of Thrones? Totally Slytherin.

As far as I know, it was mostly because in his last decades he focused his research mostly on obtaining a classical field theory that unified gravity and electromagnetism, hoping that out of it the discrete aspects of quantum theory would emerge organically. Most of the forefront theoretical physicists viewed this (correctly, in retrospect) as a dead end and focused on the new discoveries on nuclear structure and elementary particles, on understanding the structure of quantum field theory, etc.

Einstein's philosophical criticism of quantum theory was not the reason for his relative marginalization, except insofar as it may have influenced his research choices.