[HPforGrownups] Re: book differences - Lilies

[rosie]

No: HPFGUIDX 40244

Rowen said:

"Actually, I quite like the Jim Dale American book-on-CD's. I think he 
does quite a good job."

Is he the guy who does Listening Library? He's not bad.. but really... Stephen Fry is better! Trust me!

and:
"I do have to admit that I like to read the 
British versions (went there in person and bought a set) because of 
the slang. It sounds about as strange to me as American slang does to 
you. But still, the books have not been fully Americanized. When I 
read them, the characters still sound British. Even with the slang 
changed, they don't sound like Americans. Has to do with word order 
and choice of adjectives. But anyway . . . .

I do wish they hadn't changed some of the minor slang like Happy 
Christmas and Mum, but it was definetly necessary to change things 
like jumper. That would have lost quite a few "dumb Americans." lol"

People wouldn't have understood "jumper"?!?!?! Not even from the context? Dear lord. Still, I suppose most British people only know so much American slang because all they do is sit in front American TV shows all day. Out of interest, if it's not too OT, what British words did people reading the books not understand, or liked? For example, I have heard that "Prat" is becoming a very in word in the US. 

To me it jars even more because they only changed some of the words. The only American version I have heard is SS, but it sounds very funny because someone might say, "Oh golly, you prat, I had gotten that already" or whatever, mixing very English and very American ways of speaking.

I had written:
>>Incidentally, were any Americans (as a nation) insulted that the 
American publishers thought no one would buy it if it had the 
word "Philosopher" on the cover, hence the change to Sorcerer's Stone?
<<

And Rowen wrote:
"I am extremely insulted by it. Everything over here gets "idiot 
proofed" when it's imported. You should see the mangled versions of 
Japanese anime we get. It's doubly bad since it's a "children's book" 
since apparently American kids are only slightly more intelligent 
than slugs."

Ah - I'm glad to see the American public fighting back :). 

I noticed from the differences list that they introduced Dean Thomas in the Sorting Ceremony in the US edition too, and described him as black. Does anyone know if this was because someone decided he should be introduced earlier? Or was it (as I fear) because they thought, "Oh no, we better point out that some random characters are black to be more inclusive, even though we don't both pointing out when people are white, and even though it has no bearing whatsoever on the story."? I'm all for books representing the whole of society... but I think it looks very clumsy to just point out that the odd character is black, or Asian, or whatever, and just assume that obviously everyone else is white; it looks as if it's just been done so that the publishers can go "Look! We had a single mother/black child/wheelchair user" etc. Although maybe it was just to get him mentioned earlier. What do you think?

 Do you have the "Adult versions" and "Child Versions" over there too? Exactly the same but with different covers? That struck me as quite stupid too.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Snickerdoodle wrote: 
"Alright, I was thinking about this, and somthing occured to me. There 
are a few different kinds of lilys (the two that immeditly spring to 
mind are the water lilly and and the lily-of-the-valley). I noticed 
that water lilly was spelled differently than Lily's actual name, do 
specific kinds of lilys have specific meanings? Also, lily-of-the-
valley, could that possibly be a reference to Godric's Hollow? Isn't 
hollow another name for a small valley? That is really streching it 
though. My last point of interest, the birthday flower for the month 
of May is a lily-of-the-valley and the birthstone for that month is 
an emerald."

I think you can spell it water lily or water lilly... I checked on www.dictionary.com... so I doubt it has a bearing. Interesting points, though, especially the connection between green emeralds and lily-of-the-valley...


Rosie 


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]