fandomsecrets | [ SECRET POST #2548 ]

[ SECRET POST #2548 ]

⌈ Secret Post #2548 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

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REMINDER: For people who needed extra time to finish for the FS Secret Santa - today's the last day to get in your gifts! Gifts go out tomorrow!

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Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

I was thinking when I read the original secret that I had read the "Shoes" books in "British" as a child and was okay, so reading the Harry Potter books in "British" should have been fine, but your first paragraph makes a lot of sense. With things like "pants" and "jumper" being similar enough to what an American would use the words for but having different meanings, I could see why it would potentially cause confusion. Especially with children.

wait what is an american pants?

Pants in American means what you wear on your lower half, over your legs and the like. In British English they're called Trousers.

Pants in British English is your undergarments.

I think in Britain "pants" are the equivalent of an American's "underwear", whereas an American's "pants" are the equivalent of a Brit's "trousers".

Trousers.

Spelling definitely threw me off as a kid, not to mention punctuation. I have the British edition of the 5th book, and one thing that confuses me the most is that dialogue quotes are done like this:

'Can you fly?' he asked.

Whereas in America, it goes like this:

"Can you fly?" he asked.

And it especially confused me when dealing with contractions, because then you get things like this:

'Can't you fly?' he asked.

D:

But yes, a lot of minor things like spelling, terminology, etc. threw me off as a kid, and I was a kid who already had a lot of exposure to other versions of English as my parents were immigrants who'd learned Queen's English in school before coming to America. Even knowing that different English-speaking countries spelled things differently, my gut reaction to "colour" was to go "no, there's no 'u'".

I don't remember that in the book I read! Now I totally want to did the books up from the box in the attic and see if they were like that and I'm just not remembering, or whether they changed some of it to "American" and just missed some things. I can see how that would be distracting to have the quotation marks changed. The only British word I remember is "shortsighted". My mother started to tell me what it was and then realized that I was reading a British book and told me it likely meant "nearsighted" in that book instead of what it meant in "American".

I agree that to kids who aren't totally confident in spelling, the minor variations could be confusing as well.

It's one thing to "Americanize" works for adults, but I think I'm totally okay with Americanizing books for kids.

Americanizing a book in terms of terms and spelling, I get. There are very concrete linguistic differences between English dialects. Americanizing content, though, is just ridiculous. -_-

That said, I can see the reason for changing the title, too. "Philosopher" and "Sorcerer" do mean different things in American parlance, and the way Nicholas Flamel is described in the book is very much a sorcerer and very little a philosopher, at least in terms of making the stone. I can understand why everyone is irritated, but from the critical, editorial standpoint, I'd still say it was a good move - or the least-bad one, at any rate.

What content was Americanized? Did I miss something? I thought it was just terms and spelling and stuff.

I agree with that; although, apparently, according to this thread there is such a thing as a "Philosopher's Stone" in myth or whatever already?

The content of the books themselves were not Americanized, just the title. The content of shows like "Skins" and "Being Human", however, were both unnecessarily and stupidly Americanized - the former because so much of what made the show stand out just doesn't apply in America, and the latter because it was not really needed in the first place.

And, that is perhaps part of the point. "Philosopher's Stone", as a phrase, means something in the UK, but it doesn't mean anything in America. As such, potential readers would just be stuck trying to find out what the stone of a philosopher is, but in American English, "philosopher" = someone who thinks a lot, works through moral/ethical/existential problems, etc. If someone is practicing magic, that doesn't make them a philosopher, that makes them a wizard/sorcerer/warlock/etc. A "philosopher's stone" is a rock that belongs to someone who thinks a lot, but a "sorcerer's stone" is something that can be magical.

"Philosopher's stone" is a collocation that you'll find in any good dictionary, whether English or American. It really doesn't have a different meaning in the US.

It's in Merriam-Webster.

Maybe, but what's the likelihood that the 8-12 demographic the book was originally targeted towards would have heard of it before?

To be quite blunt, I'm a college student borne of well-read, international parents who has been a part of the Harry Potter fandom for over a decade, and I had to look it up right now to see that holy shit, this thing is in the dictionary and is a phrase that has nothing to do with Harry Potter or JKR. (You learn something new every day).

I don't know about the UK and I won't speak for British children (or at least I will try not to). But I will say that I'm pretty sure most young children and preteens in America have never heard of a philosopher's stone before Harry Potter (or at all, even after the widespread popularity). On it's own, it is just not a part of American parlance. The fear of American publishers that they would interpret that title as "a rock of a person who thinks a lot" and not "a magical rock with powerful properties" is a very legitimate one, and while I can understand an author's attachment to a certain title or way of looking at the book, I can also understand why the editors/publishers changed it for a different audience.

British kids are no more likely to have heard of the philosopher's stone than American kids.

Don't take this the wrong way, you're certainly making sense with some of your other points, but this specific argument is absolutely stupid. Rowling didn't come up with the concept of the stone, and it's actual name is philosopher's stone, both in America and in Britain. Changing it is completely pointless. And it's not like the books expects its readers to know what the stone is as it explains it anyway.

You would have had a point if the title was Harry Potter and the Magic Pram, as that would be a word that American kids would be less familiar with than British children, but a mystical stone mostly associated with alchemy?

If British kids are not likely to have heard it either, then picking that as a title in the first place wasn't a good publishing move. Though to be fair, I guess if they expect parents to pick the book, it would make more sense. (Do Brits have in-school kids' book sales/scholastic fairs? IIRC, that was a huge jump-start to the books' popularity in America, or at the very least a lot of the kids I knew picked it up from there).

No, that one is a mistake. "Philosopher's Stone" is the thing's name. Jo Rowling didn't make it up. It's called "The Philosopher's Stone" in all countries.

There is no difference between "philosopher" in UK English and in US English. It's not like "biscuit" or "jumper." "Philosopher" is the same thing in both countries, and "The Philosopher's Stone" is the same thing in both countries.

That's why changing that is so bizarre.

I know that it's the thing's name. I'm just saying that even knowing that it has a formal name/is a proper noun, most American kids have no idea what it is, so changing the name to "Sorcerer's Stone" to make them more inclined to pick it is an understandable move. And if British kids are unfamiliar with it, too, then I'd say that picking Philosopher's Stone as a name in the first place is a questionable publishing decision as well.

I mean, as an author, I can understand why she dislikes the title change and would get so attached to "Philospher's Stone". It's just that from the perspective of an editor or publisher, I can also understand that they have to market the book and they want to go with a title that will make the most sense to their market demographic. Retroactively, it seems like a dumb move, but they had no idea it was going to be so popular - and such an international culture movement in its own right - when they picked up the book for American circulation in the first place.

Do you agree that it's the author's call, and this was a case of editorial overreach?

Not really. As an author, you give up a few things when you go into a contract with a publishing house, and you do so in exchange for more visibility and thus more profits. The only way an author can retain total control of their book is via self-publishing. Otherwise, publishers are going to be focused on maximizing book sales/profits, and sometimes elements of the book have to change a bit to benefit that goal.

I am (un)lucky enuogh that I can't spell and so I can't noticis the differents. I do pick up slang and culturl things, that make the books better.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[ SECRET POST #2548 ]

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No, "Philosopher's Stone" is the thing's NAME.

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Re: It's a negative feedback loop