OK, I’m a dork for reading Harry Potter. But I used to work in a bookstore and I sold so many copies of the books that I finally read them to see what was so great, and I really enjoyed them. It’s not Shakespeare, but it’s fun to read.
So, it’s been fun picking up some British slang (I’m American) but I’ve started to notice instances where American words are used (I didn’t notice until recently because they’re words I use all the time). Things like soccer instead of football, field instead of pitch, and several other examples that I can’t recall at the moment. I remember there being quite a few, though. Oh yeah, cookie instead of biscuit…
Does anyone know why a woman from the UK would use American words in her book? Some of these happen in the first book or two, before it became so popular, so I don’t think it was to appeal to a wider audience. I rather like the strange words, but it got me wondering. Are words like soccer and cookie coming into wider use in the UK?
The book is published in two editions, one for the American market, and th other for the rest of the world including the UK. Thats why the US edition is titled “Harry Potter And The Sorcerors Stone” and the UK edition is titled “Harry Potter And The Philosophers Stone”. When the American edition is printed, changes are made to put in american spelling and to replace ‘british’ words with their ‘american’ equivelent.
And you’re not a dork. a large variety of people have read the books, more then would perhaps admit to it. At least you came out of the closet.
Are you reading US or British editions? My US edition of *HP & the Sorcerer’s Stone * says on p. 4: “…to buy himself a bun from the bakery,” whereas my British edition of HP & the Philosopher’s Stone, p. 9, gives “…to buy himself a bun from the baker’s opposite.”
The US* HP & the Order of the Phoenix* keeps more Britishisms intact, e.g. “pitch” and “jumper.” Whether it keeps them all I don’t know.
See I thouht there might be 2 editions, but because they left in so many other words like prat and git and “do a runner” I didn’t think they did that. It kind of upsets me, I was in England when the 5th book came out and I could have bought it (and I think it would have been slightly cheaper too) but I didn’t because I wanted to go to the pub instead.
Yeah, jumper and sweater was another one I’d noticed.
And if you want even more detail on a few of the modifications in the early books, there’s a good article at World Wide Words. It mainly focuses on the use of ‘English muffin’ instead of ‘crumpet’, which gives entirely the wrong conotations.
Not only was there an American version for Harry Potter 5, there was an Australian version which had Ron constantly spouting “mate” to everyone. I have no idea why this is but it was highly annoying.
The one that often amuses me in these types of discussion is that in everyday language in the UK a torch is what the US-ers seem to call a flashlight.
Fair enough, no problem with that.
I’m told that atorch to a US-er is the flaming hand held thing which you might see in “Mississippi Burning”
But surely, in Harry Potter’s wizardy world, a torch is exactly that, rather than a Muggle invention with batteries in it?
As far as I know, UK English uses the same word for the flamy “Mississippi Burning” fire stick as it does for the “flashlight” and that word is torch.
So if the US translators have changed Harry’s torch to a flashlight, they surely have made a boo boo.
The bizarre thing is that it was almost certainly a waste of time and money. British children’s books have been popular in the USA for a century or more and so far as I’m aware this silly translation thing is a recent innovation.
Canadians get the English versions of the books and seem to understand them just fine - even though Canadian English is mostly American, not British. We don’t say “torch,” we say “flashlight,” - we say “English muffin,” instead of crumpet, “soccer,” instead of football, cookie instead of biscuit; if Slytherin is victorious in a Quidditch match we say “Slytherin wins!” (American) not “Slytherin win!” (British.) Going over the list of words in the link Rex provided, Canadians use the Americanism in every single case, (except for maybe four or five cases where we have our own way of saying it.)
Yet I didn’t see Canadian kids getting confused with the language.
Why did they change the title to “Sorcerer’s stone”? That doesn’t make any sense to me. A philosopher is someone like Descartes who examines the nature of things. A sorcerer is someone who casts spells. Right? Is there a “British definition” of “philosopher” that’s different?
It’s not a matter of a “British definition.” The Philosopher’s Stone is (was) a legendary object that was the Holy Grail for any self-respecting alchemist in the Middle Ages. As stated in HPatPS/SS, it could transform base metals into gold (the “Elixir of Life,” though, was a new one on me).
I became acquainted with the Philosopher’s Stone legend in high school, which was close enough to the Dark Ages that it probably made sense at the time. It seems to have fallen by the wayside, at least as far as American public education is concerned.
JKR regrets the change now, but at the time it was rather stupidly assumed by the US publishers that kids wouldn’t want to read a book with the word “Philosopher’s” in the title, in case they thought it was some historical non-fiction.
It is also interesting to note that many American children’s books will contain older words or phrases which are not familiar to today’s youth. The Hardy Boys will use words such as “chum” or “jalopy” which are not part of the vocabulary of the average 4th grader.
