The Lounge

When I got my first Harry Potter book (the Scholastic edition) I noticed that it used American spellings (things like "color" instead of "colour"). And the name of the book didn't match the movie (Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone).

Later at another bookstore I found the Canadian edition (from Raincoast books), and it had much prettier cover art so I bought the rest of my Potter books from there. And I was so unhappy about my American book that I ended up buying Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone from Raincoast too.

It's not just the spelling that's Americanized in the Scholastic edition. A quaffle is compared to a soccer ball (not a football), a Beater's bat is like "a short baseball bat" (not a rounder's bat, whatever that is), and Hermione has a crying jag in "the "bathroom" (not the toilets). All that in about 4 pages.

Is this interference called for? There's no question for me personally - half the charm of the Potter stories is their Britishness (I'm pretty nerdy about my love of things English) and I can't help but feel that the American books are butchered. But they're more approachable for American kids. Does this dumb them down too much?

EDIT: I've changed the title to reflect what I see as the real issue. But this discussion has brought home the fact that many Americans see everything un-American as, at best, not the sort of thing impressionable kids should be exposed to.

They're localized, not "dumbed down".
These books are targeted toward younger people, who may not
understand regional differences. I see no harm in changing somewhat
foreign terms into familiar ones.

Then why isn't it edited for Canadians too? The Canadian edition is obviously just the same as the British.

I don't consider that dumbed down.  Not even remotely.  We have our own version of English and I don't mean those who can barely speak it.  The UK has tons of slangs & tons of people who don't speak "proper" English,  just like here.  I'm not sure where the impression comes from that  everyone there speaks like the royalty. 

I'm ok with a tiny change in a book so that it doesn't sound to our children like Ron Weasely's mother knits little girly dresses for the boys, rather than sweaters.  But I guess that's why books can be gotten in more than one form.

I'm fine with it, & if I wasn't, I could easily get the other edition.  I'm probably better versed in British speak than I ever needed to be.  :P

Hehe, I'd forgotten about the jumpers - touche! And having American books edited to remove all references to local things like "sophomores" for publication abroad would be a bit silly. I guess it's a matter of degree.

I think its called "losing something in the translation"  I remember reading Im Westen nichts Neues and Die Verwandlung  in High school German and then reading All Quiet on the Western Front
and The Metamorphosis  in english and they both weren't dumbed down but they were different in several ways. 

I bet if they gave the Harry Potter books to an American in Maine, Alabama, Nebraska, Texas and California you'd probably come out with 5 totally different interpretations due to the dialects of the area.

That reminds me of a story one of my philosophy profs told us. Emmanuel Kant has a truly nasty reputation as a difficult, technical writer. One day when he was a student my prof found his roomate reading an English edition of Kant. He asked "Why don't you read the original German - you're German!"

"This is easier"

Moral - there are two sorts of translations of Kant: accurate ones and readable ones.

There IS a lot of editing of Harry Potter, though. Not just vocabulary and spelling; little things like "towards". The editor doesn't seem to like the British habit of saying "towards" and substitutes "toward". I think there's too much of that sort of thing - the person obviously feels the need to mess with a book to earn his keep.

around 6th grade (grade 6) i found out that the English i speak is different than the English the English speak.  on spelling tests and what not, i would spell color colour, center centre, theater theatre, and all sorts of other spellings.  i thought it was neat.  then i got into trouble for it.  my teacher told me that is not how Americans spell things.  so i stopped.

maybe it's the same kind of thing.  Americans want to read things that are American sounding.  and British slang is quite a bit different than American or even Canadian slang.

there was quite a uproar over the ordeal though

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harry_Potter_and _the_Philosopher's_Stone#American_English_edi tion

Ginnie Weasley calls her mother "Mom" in the American edition. Need I say more?

So what? That's how Americans say it(Mom). I was raised in California and moved to Nebraska last year. I've noticed the way people in both states speak is almost similiar, but not quite.

Do you really want Ginnie to talk with an American accent?

the person obviously feels the need to mess with a book to earn his keep.

That's editors for you.

Wait. Back up. Did you equate Kant with Harry Potter?

.......Pardon me while I lose interest in this entirely.

It really wouldn't help things if the kids need to ask "what does this term mean?" every 5 minutes when reading a book.  They are kids.  They lose interest fast.  If anyone is really concerned about the "Authenticity" of such a publication, they can go to the store or go online to buy themself a bonafide British version.

I do, however, consider your wording quite offensive.  After reading this post and reading your profile, I just wouldn't think of you as "nice" as you described yourself. 

of course they dumbed it down, it's more marketable!

i'm with flamel.  would it be so tragic to expose american kids to british english?  to me, it's an example of american centrism; like, there's probably nothing else out there, and if there is something else out there, it's not important enough to worry about.

makes me proud to be canadian, where we give our kids some credit and don't mind answering questions.

edited to say that it just occurred to me, this isn't about the kids at all.  this is about parents and teachers who won't be able to answer the kids' questions.  it's about the people who pay for the books, not the ones who read them.  the publishers can't afford to make the adults look dumb.

This reminds me of the movie and the world wide reaction to "Forrest Gump".   Non-USA countries didn't get our love affair (Award season grief) with the movie.  If you were from the USA you got it.  If you were from the south you really got it and if you were from Alabama, it was the greatest movie ever.....

Does this mean the rest were just "dumb" because they didn't know the behind the scenes culture and events in the movie or maybe they were suffering from their own centrism?  

Does anybody remember reading The Secret Garden as a kid?  Wouldn't it be sorta sad to turn that charming Highland Scottish into proper English so that kids have an easier time understanding it?  I can think of lots of other examples ... The Color Purple comes straight to mind.

I think it's probably good for kids to read different dialects ... it broadens their horizons and gives them a fuller exposure to the language.

I'm from an area where the glove compartment is called a jockey box - no idea why, but I would hope if I was to write a book and refer to a jockey box my editor would fix it otherwise no one would know what I was talking about. On that same line if the book had not been Americanized, I would have thought for years that the quaffle was shaped like an American football, even though I know otherwise, it just wouldn't have dawned on me until I saw it in the movie. I just think if it was too British a lot of it would just take on a different meaning -- it's just too close of a language. It's not that us as parents/teachers are "dumb" and can't teach them how the British language is - quite the opposite, I think most Americans are intrigued by it. But these books are for LEISURE reading for our children - they would not understand a lot of it and every other page have to stop and ask and would eventually just give up. I do like to listen to these books on cassette and get the British flavor there, and maybe I should buy the British versions and have my kids read them AFTER they've read the Americanized version, then they would get it, otherwise -- it would be nice to hear Ginnie refer to Mrs. Weasly as dear ol' mum.

That's a good point! 

I'd like to read the British version though, just so I can see the differences myself and make up my own mind whether or not it's "dumbed down" or just translated a bit.

Personally, I'm tired of everyone on every forum I get on calling americans dumb. If you dont live over here..you dont know what your talking about. Just because of the things portrayed on the Television are the only things you see, dont judge a whole country by it.

It is translated like that for a reason....its a TRANSLATION. We dont call the bathroom "toilets"..we call them "bathrooms". Give a 9 year old the book and they would think the girl is actuall IN the toilets.

I've lived in many diff. countries and grew up in Europe (Military), and I've learned not to judge all British people as rich snobby A** holes, so why dont you learn not to judge all Americans as stupid? Thanks.