I was going to mention this one. Futurama was pretty much alone in that it had writers who understood science and math.
The explanation I’ve heard, which I think is part fanwank and mostly a very cool take on the story, is that this line demonstrates the Wizard’s con-artist nature. Give the Scarecrow a brain? He didn’t give him shit! The Scarecrow is exactly as ignorant as he was before, but now he’s just convinced he knows what he’s talking about, whereas before at least he correctly knew his own limits.
I don’t get this at all. It’s stupid to say you can’t swim if you are in a situation that calls for swimming?
Yeah, I don’t understand that, either. If someone’s panicked and freaking out, I don’t think that’s the best circumstances under which to suddenly learn to swim…
Apparently everyone is supposed to know how to swim or if they can’t they should be able to instantly learn how to master that ability which has eluded them their entire life when immersed in water during a desperate, panic filled situation. Just like in real life where life guards are merely window dressing.
Someone gave us a very nice box of assorted chocolates at work. I went to get one and asked J if she wanted one. She declined, saying that “T had already looked them over”. I had no idea what she meant, so she picked one up, turned it over, and showed me where T had plunged a fingernail through the bottom, exposing the innards.
Is that a thing?:eek:
Magnificent username/post combo.
But do you really think there would have been fewer copies sold in the US if it has said “Philosopher’s stone,” because Americans would say “What the hell’s a philosopher’s stone? I’m not reading this.”
Actually, I’m sure there’s a way to make it less clunky; my point was that they didn’t try because they assumed people wouldn’t know the difference.
If you want less clunky, and something you might really find at a garage sale, how about a first edition Howl? I know someone who found not a first edition, but a signed copy of that at a garage sale. Or maybe that’s a little too obscure. First edition Scarlet Letter?
Personally, I think that anyone who knows enough to know that a “first edition” Iliad won’t be a bound edition in English will know enough to know that one of the most famous translations is Alexander Pope’-- or at least recognize the name Pope, and be able to figure out he’s a likely translator, and place him in time. I’d still pick a different book.
It didn’t sell any less in the regions where they used ‘Philosopher’ (that’d be every English speaking market except the US), than in the US, relatively speaking. Which suggests that, no, the underestimation of the intelligence of the average American child did not, in fact, figure into those huge sales.
I liked that as well, but technically, couldn’t a spaceship be built to withstand more than just Earth’s atmospheric pressure? It’s not like Earth is the only planet they ever land on.
Re: Harry Potter renaming.
Do we really think more English/Indian/whatever 9 year old children know what a philosopher’s stone is supposed to be, vs. American children? I daresay there must be quite a bit of overlap in children’s literary culture amongst English-speaking countries, even prior to J.K. Rowling. However, I was a big Anglophile as a child (as well as a devourer of Victoriana and Medieval/Middle-Ages fantasy) and I wouldn’t say that stories featuring alchemy were exactly prominent, even within British literature. It’s a niche thing, like science fiction about nanobots; you sort of have to look for it, if you like it.
The name change was quite stupid regardless, since it had already been published as “Philosopher’s Stone,” right? At any point the publishers could have nicely asked Rowling to throw in just one more pedantic sentence from Hermione, if the link didn’t seem clear. (It’s been a while since I read the book/watched the film) OTOH, “Sorcerer’s Stone” has a nicer ring to it, with all the S’s. 
As you were.
Unfortunately, yes.
No, but I can imagine some kids saying “Philosophers? That sounds like schoolwork. Boooorrrring! I’m not reading this.”
Of course, most of the kids who would say that are probably unlikely to read anything, so I doubt it would have hurt sales very much.
If the “Sorcerer’s Stone” were a thing, even just something from D&D, so it were familiar, I’d understand, but it was invented for the freaking book. More people are going to know what the philosopher’s stone is than what the sorcerer’s stone is, because no one knows what the sorcerer’s stone is.
“Philosopher’s” stone sounds like school work? to a ten-year-old? I don’t really buy that argument. Either you know what the philosopher’s stone is, in which case, it makes the book attractive, or you don’t, in which case, it’s meaningless. I can’t see kids under the age of about 15 going “Philosopher’s Stone” –> philosophy –> school work, because in the US, philosophy isn’t taught in school. I don’t think I even had the word on a spelling test. We get a little Thoreau, but no one calls it “philosophy.” We get the metaphysical poets if we take advanced English our last year in high school, but no one calls that philosophy either. You can get a college degree in the US and not be able to define “existentialism.”
There is a 1952 movie “Breaking the Sound Barrier” directed by David Lean and starring Ralph Richardson has a British pilot as the first to fly faster then sound by putting the controls in reverse. Chuck Yeagar, the American who actually broke the sound barrier, has stated if a pilot did this, he would kill himself.
And then there is “U-571”.