Sorcerer stone v Philosopher Stone WAS: Hermione

[dumbledore11214]

> > Alla:
> > 
> > I do understand what you are saying Magpie about wanting to grab right audience and fast, but still I think I have to agree with Miles again :-)
> > 
> > I mean, the reason why they would want to grab the right audience with changing the word, the underlying assumption is that the audience may not know the definition, right?
> 
> Magpie:
> Yes--but I'm disagreeing with the idea that assuming a 9-year-old  would automatically look at a book with "Philosopher's Stone" on the cover and say, "I'll check out this book to see if it's about a boy who can do magic" is the same as assuming they're stupid.

Alla:

No, not assuming that they are stupid, but assuming that they do not know what it is, but I now see more what you are saying in your next paragraph.


Magpie:
> Sure it might imply thinking more highly of their intelligence if you assume they'll not only make the connection to alchemy and then make the second connection to wizards and sorcery, but you might lose a lot of intelligent kids who don't make the right connection. Even a kid who knows what the Philosopher Stone is wouldn't necessarily connect it with Wizardry, since that's an artificial connection. Just by title I'd probably assume it was a mystery story.

Alla:

Ah, I see your point a little bit better now, you are saying that even kids who know what philosopher stone is may not connect it automatically to magic, sure, I can see that, however read on.


Magpie: 
> Yeah, the title is totally more in-your-face, writing MAGIC in big letters on the title, but if HP hadn't been a huge sensation I wouldn't be surprised if that led to more book sales by putting the selling point in the title rather than the Maguffin. 

Alla:

Right, it could have been, but again my sticking point is that author had enough faith in young kids' ability to know what it is AND make a right connection. I mean it is not like she wrote with different ages in mind for British kids before book sold in the USA. I wish american publishers had as much faith and not ask her to change title.  Of course she just wanted badly to sell her first book, it however did sell just as well with original title, no?

Magpie: 
> Peter Benchley wrote a book he was originally going to call something including the word Leviathan. The eventual title probably communicated more to the members of the audience who didn't recognize the word Leviathan, but I don't think it said they thought the audience were stupid just because they went for the more obvious JAWS.

Alla:

That's very interesting. I am sorry though, I really do think that was dumping down to audience, I mean it is to me not exactly the same since author picked a different title, not that author changed the title everywhere, just for american kids.

Oh and while I know what Jaws is, I have not read this book and not planning on to, so again just reacting to your story. I know it is not completely horror, but adventure too, but am scared too easily  and do not like large sharks :-)

Funnily, if it was called Leviafan, I could have picked the book, I think Jaws IS the title that actually better prevents me from doing it lol.

Alla