Sorcerer stone v Philosopher Stone WAS: Hermione

[sistermagpie]

> 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:
Or not. I mean, JKR probably wasn't naming the book with the same marketing ideas in mind. She sold the book on the ms, not on the title. 

Obviously it sold just fine as PS in the UK, but then, the actual sales were so crazy that the title wound up being completely irrelevent. There really was no reason to change it. But if I imagine the book not having those crazy sales, even if I prefer the Philosopher's Stone title, I wouldn't think it was ridiculous to want to make the title more obvious just in case it could get a few more readers. The people selling the thing probably wouldn't stand on an intellectual principle even if the author might.
> 
> 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.

Magpie:
But why assume that Leviathan is better just because it's got more syllables or gets used less? Jaws is better not because it's a more recognizable word, imo, but because it evokes the right feeling where Leviathan doesn't. 

(Not to mention, there's probably already a dozen Leviathan books out there. Jaws would, I think, be far more likely to make somebody take a look because it was so unusual: Jaws? Who calls a book Jaws? Add that picture of the shark on the cover and...I think it's one classic title! Leviathan, by contrast, is imo trying far too hard.) 

Jaws is far more fitting because it gets to the more primitive, gut of the story You're not afraid of the fancier word that means something in the deep, you're afraid of being eaten by the big teeth. It's the same thinking that drove John Williams to write the awesome theme music. When Spielberg first heard it he said, "Are you kidding me? Two notes?" And Williams was like, yeah, because it's that primitive and single minded! 

So yeah, for that title I think Jaws was genius. Very often in writing the simpler word is better.

Not that this has anything to do with HP where the only real advantage of Sorcerer is maybe the alliteration, of course. It's a whole different set of issues. Just wanted to say that sometimes the simpler word is the correct choice, even if fewer people know the longer word. 

-m