Editing literature to conform to current custom

[davewitley]

--- In HPFGU-OTChatter at y..., "Mary Jennings" <macloudt at h...> wrote:

>Kipling, 
> however, wrote in modern English, which is why this situation is 
different 
> from the Bible scenario.
> 
I have had the following sitting awaiting final edits for about a 
week.  Although it doesn't address the Dean Thomas issue specifically 
(and was intended originally for the main list), I think it is 
germane to this thread, as I would say that Elkins' entire case is 
based on the fact that Kipling's English is no longer quite modern.

I wanted to check the details of some of the assertions I make as I 
do not have the US HP editions, so there could be more errors than 
usual in this post.

David

The fact that the Harry Potter books were revised for the US (but 
not, as I understand it, Canadian; I hope nobody will mind if I use 
the term 'American' to mean the US readership) market comes up fairly 
frequently on the main list.  This is just a few musings on the wider 
implications.

Languages *do* change over time.  That means that communities with a 
common that are separated begin to find that they diverge 
linguistically.  Undoubtedly this creates misunderstandings but it is 
a natural process.  Portuguese, Spanish, Catalan, Provencal, French, 
Romanche, Italian, and Romanian are all descended from Latin.  Some 
day in the far future, American and Australian may be considered to 
be different languages from British English.

It is hard to say whether television and other fast means of cultural 
exchange will delay, or even accelerate this development.  However, 
it is happening, and the Harry Potter series may in fact be a 
landmark in the process: for the first time, it was judged necessary 
to 'translate' a British text into an American (ie US) one.  We have 
yet, to my knowledge, to encounter the reverse case, in which an 
American book is translated into British English.

Americans may feel insulted that they are judged incapable of reading 
an only marginally alien text (though in fact the decision to revise 
the books is likely to be more to do with their attractiveness to 
children than any great difficulty in reading them); British readers 
may feel that their unique culture has been rejected as off-putting.  
We ought to be able to live with this.

I think that the existence of the American versions really does 
enrich the canon for fans.  My understanding is that JKR approved the 
changes that Scholastic introduced, so if the American version says 
that Dean is black, either it is making explicit what JKR already had 
decided, or it is an innovation that she was happy to embrace.  In 
either case, it's canon.

Some of the changes are baffling: if she agreed them, why not also 
put them in the UK versions (for example, the change from Enervate to 
Ennervate)? Lack of time?  A very few are hard to understand as they 
verge on Flints, for example, the change from 'one more curse' 
to 'one more death' in GOF 1.  A curse is most naturally interpreted 
as meaning the one (Imperius) which was placed on Crouch Sr or 
Moody.  Crouch Sr's death was not necessary to Voldemort's plan, and 
as far as we know was not planned, at least until after Voldemort was 
rebirthed.  Possibly Voldemort saw Harry's death as essential to the 
plan but the implication is a curse or death that will happen soon.  
Perhaps Pip will come up with a theory that suggests that some 
completely other and as yet unsuspected (except by her) death is 
involved.

But these differences just add to the interest in trying to decipher 
the meaning in the books.

D