Philosophers Stone (was UK v US language difficulties reply to post from MAIN

[Catlady (Rita Prince Winston)]

--- In HPFGU-OTChatter at yahoogroups.com, "sistermagpie"
<sistermagpie at ...> wrote:

<< I must say, though, Mike Smith recently had a great defense of the 
use "Sorcerer's Stone." As a chemist he knows what the Philosopher's 
Stone is perfectly well, >>

Do chemists (the scientists, not the pharmacists) all know all about
the Philosopher's Stone? It certainly never was mentioned in my
undergraduate non-advanced chemistry classes, altho' if I recall
correctly, phlogiston once was, explaining how (Lavoisier? Priestly?)
disproved the phlogiston theory by weighing the object before burning
and all the combustion products (including smoke) after burning. At
the time, I didn't think of asking whether the extra weight (including
replacement of the weight of the departed phlogiston) could have been
replaced by air sucked in during the burning. 

The obsolete 'ether' theory was much more discussed in my
undergraduate physics class. 

<< and actually did a fascinating post explaining the understanding
about the world it came from. >>

Link? Repost here?

<< But he felt that some of the actual properties of it weren't the
best fit with the Potterverse (for instance, to a person living in the
time of alchemy making gold and immortality would naturally go
together), and what's more, he thought that "Philosopher's Stone"
rather stuck out in Rowling's world as not quite sounding like most of
the words she used. >>

I think 'Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone' is the best title
ever, of anything. The contradictory feeling of such an ordinary name
as Harry Potter and such an extraordinary idea as the Philosopher's
Stone still gets my brain buzzing every time I hear it.

But I heard someone, I think John Granger, say that Arthur Levine
changed the title because he is a markettng genius and knew that any
children's book with the word 'sorcerer' in the title would stir up a
lot of pressure groups calling, sight unseen, for the book to be
suppressed for being Satanic.
 
<< He thought that since usually the Muggle Words we know are slightly
wrong, there was nothing "dumb" about the stone really being called
something else, or having had a name change in the WW over the years.
 After all, in the WW the word philosopher isn't used the same way it
was used back then either. >>

In the WW, or in the RW? I don't recall canon for the word
'philosopher' being used at all in the RW.