Separated by a common language (WAS: Jim Dale, Stupid Americans etc.)

[archeaologee]

No: HPFGUIDX 40334

Christi wrote:
> > The North American versions of the books don't translate words 
> > like "muggle" do they.
> > 
> > <snip>
> 
> No, but that's an entirely different issue.  "Muggle" is Wizard 
> slang, not British slang, and so there's no real point in switching 
> it.  Maybe American wizards have another word for non-magic types, 
> but since we haven't met any in the books yet (the Salem witches in 
> GoF don't count, since we only see them in passing) that's kind of 
a 
> moot point.


I think my point needs clearing up a bit (I have a terrible habbit of 
writing an incomprehensible post that makes perfect sense to me, and 
is nonsense to all others).

In the books JKR is very concious of how she uses language to define 
groups.  The death eaters speak very diferently to the Weasley's, 
Dumbledore's conversation is a world away from Snape's, and even the 
poor Huflepuffs [how many f's ARE there in that word?] speak 
diferently than the Slytherins.

The creation of a Wizarding World vocabulary is to give it a flavour 
of it's own, emphasise it's diference from Harry's world.  Tolkein 
does the same in creating Elfish as a language, and yes I do mean 
Elfish not Elvish as he himself went balistic when the publishers 
(both in the UK and in the USA) 'corrected' this spelling.

Harry does not grow up in North America.  He would say Mum not Mom, 
and 'torch' not 'flashlight'.  If the publishers are happy about 
showing the flavour of the wizard world by letting in words such 
as 'muggle' (which no child will know the meaning of) in with no more 
than a brief explanation by Hagrid as to what it means, then why 
lessen the feeling of the (similarly different from the US, but in a 
different way) English world by deciding that children (or others)
will not understand the words as they were written and would have 
been used by the characters themselves [or is it themselfs *g*].

I still advocate a little glossary at the back so anyone who fails to 
understand a word could just flick to the back and get its 'real' 
meaning, rather than just changing the script.

I personally believe this was a power thing.  At first JKR has none 
and the publishing house has lots (hence the SS vs PS issue and the 
number of things changed in that volume) whereas now the situation is 
reversed and JKR has the power so there are far fewer 'corrections' 
to her script in the later books. We know from stories from the set 
of the film which must not be named that she is highly protective 
about her copy and I personally will be interested to see if at some 
future date the "translated into USglish" editions will disappear.

James (who has been reading too much Marx and is really into  
relations of power at the moment)