LOL. He really is! :)
I was thinking..could it be his mother? Eileen Prince? Other than that, i'm not really sure who else it could be

According to JK rowling the books take place from like 1990 through 1998 so snape would be 10 years older right now any way. So he could logically 50 plus years old now.

According to the Harry Potter Lexicon, Snape was born in 1959. Seeing as Harry found the Potions book in 1996, that would only make Snape 37 years old during HBP, not 50, ecconitro. :)

maybe he is the HBP and his family was poor so they had to get second/third hand books

Good point - it could be Voldemort's originally? Sounds a bit unlikely but who knows.

when did JK rowling say that? I was under the impression it wa in real time. dudley had a playstation in book 4 which was according to your posts 1994 a few years before such a thing existed, this may just be a screw up on her part, but i would like to know where you heard she said it took place in the 90's

The first books came out in the 90s and since they're supposed to be one year after another I think people have just assumed that the time is still in the late 90s.

i guess that makes sense.....but i dont know, i dont think you can make assumptions like that, and snapes family was indeed poor, he got that book 2nd hand at flourish and blotts...technically that was a spoiler but im gonna plead ignorant on this one

How can you NOT make assumptions like that? He starts school when he is 11, and continues for 7 years. There is no way the book could be in 'real time'.

i mean, i dont think you can make assumptions about the year it is according to the year the book came out...if this were true then the 6th book would take place in 2003 seeing as the first book came out in 1997...so assumptions like those above have no logic

Ok..the Harry Potter Lexicon time-line says that Harry was born in 1980. So, he started Hogwarts in 1991 and the last book is going to take place in 1997!
It's like Shandiii says: The books can't take place in "real time".

ok first of all you cant trust anything the lexicon says, it is created by fans like you and me, it is not affiliated with jk in any way and it can be wrong about anything that was not clearly stated in the book.....again dudley had a playstation, how is this possible in 1994?????

No, JK has said herself that she sometimes uses the Lexicon to check facts, so we know it's accurate. And Playstations were first released in the world (Japan was the first country) in 1994.

and before you all snap back and freak out about that remark, the i meant you cant trust everything, not anything.....the lexicon is a formidable fan sit, but it is not official and has the possibility of being wrong about anything that wasnt actually written in the books.

the interviews about 7 in the lexicon took place years before she even wrote book 5 so again you cant take everything posted there to heart.....and i seriousley doubt that the woman who created and wrote the series is looking up facts about it on the lexicon...where sis you read that, the lexicon?

Ok it is soooooooooooooo obvious.
Snape got the book second hand
so it was old.

Actually, fadedsg02, i got it from JKR's official site and here is the direct quote:

"The Harry Potter Lexicon
This is such a great site that I have been known to sneak into an internet café while out writing and check a fact rather than go into a bookshop and buy a copy of Harry Potter (which is embarrassing). A website for the dangerously obsessive; my natural home."

it was a second hand book that belonged to his mom.