Translation and Cultural Issues - UK and US differences

[jrober4211]

No: HPFGUIDX 34192

--- In HPforGrownups at y..., "tangawarra1" <rachrobins at h...> wrote:
>
> anyway - I'm just interested in others' perspective on this - do 
big 
> HP fans prefer one version over another??
> 
> rachel
> 
>I have never liked the character Madam Pomfrey because I thought she 
was a poor stereotype for a "nurse" and provided a poor role model 
for nursing in general. I was corrected by an english person who told 
me that in the original UK version, Madam Pomfrey is  called "matron" 
which may or may not be a nurse employed by the British school 
system. Someone in the American publishing company thought for some 
reason that Americans would not see a difference between "matron" 
and "nurse" when there actually is a big difference in the role and 
duties provided.
   I have never read the original versions, but it irritates me to no 
end that the American publishing company assumed that the US 
population was too ignorant to follow the British slang used in the 
original versions. The only reason that I can think of that this was 
done  is because, statistically speaking, US students are behind in 
reading comprehension and other areas when compared to their European 
and Japanese counterparts, but that is only my assumption. I am sure 
that the American publishing company must have done market studies 
before hiring someone to go through the text and change certain words 
so that they would be familiar to US children. Considering that the 
US imports many movies and television programs for children from 
Great Britain, I can't imagine that most US children have not been 
exposed to British slang at some point, so it makes me wonder what 
areas of the country, what statistical information,  and what age 
groups were used for this market study?

Jo Ellen