US translation explained by Scholastic (no spoiler here)

[Tonks]

Auror Tonks on special assignment reporting in:

I wrote to a customer care person at Scholastic regarding the extra 
line in the US version of the books. She did not answer my question 
fully, which is par for the course with customer care people, but 
what she did say was interesting and I am sharing it here.  I am 
sure that this is one of those canned responses that customer care 
people love to give, but still it tells us something.

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Thank you very much for your recent email.  We're delighted that you 
are such an enthusiastic fan of the "Harry Potter" series.

We would like to point out that no changes are now, or have ever 
been made to the text without the complete participation and 
approval of the author, J.K. Rowling. The philosophy of the 
translations was always to give the American reader the same 
experience--or as close to the same experience as possible--as the 
British reader. In other words, the books should feel very
British. There would never be wholesale "Americanization." Changes 
would be as few as possible. However, we felt that the readers 
should be perplexed only when the author wants them to be perplexed, 
they should notice the slang only when the author wants them to 
notice the slang, and at no other times. When the Scholastic editors 
were brought up short by a word or phrase, they would query it to 
the author and would either come up with an alternative British 
phrase (not necessarily an "American" phrase), find an
acceptable translation understandable to American readers, or we 
would leave it as is.

It was our guess--now borne out by experience--that American readers 
would become progressively more familiar with the magical world that 
Ms. Rowling had created, more familiar, and thus would be better 
oriented and less likely to be confused by individual language 
differences. Therefore, there have been progressively 
fewer "translations" to the point where the US and UK texts are 
virtually identical now.

We truly appreciate your interest in J.K. Rowling and her 
wonderful "Harry Potter" series. And as always . . . Thank you for 
choosing Scholastic!

Sincerely,
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