[HPforGrownups] Re: UK vs. US

[Kimberly]

No: HPFGUIDX 170860

> And, confess, when the books started calling pull-over
> sweaters "jumpers", how many people flashed to little dresses 
> made to wear over blouses? Even if you know what the author's 
> talking about, the mental images can yank you right out of the 
> story if they're foreign enough. Who wants to stop reading in 
> the middle of a good part just to check some on-line dictionary?
>
> Ceridwen.


Kimberly:

Hosepipes and trainers, jumpers and pudding, snogging and well, 
you get the idea. All of it was foreign to me. There were a few 
times that I had a bit of an idea what they meant and a few times 
I had no idea. 

Fortunately for the most part I was able to work it out thanks 
to contextual inferences and my own workable brain. For me, one 
of the best things about books and literature is the exposure to 
new worlds, new words, new ideas. 

As the owner of a dance studio I am in contact with a lot of 
children. You can almost always tell the "readers" from the 
"non-readers" from their vocabulary. If you ask, "Where'd
you hear that word" quite often they'll say, "In a book..". 
My children are excellent spellers because of all the reading 
they/we've done.

Learning an unfamiliar American word is no different (for me) 
than learning an unfamiliar British word. I don't know what 
every American word means. If I come across a book describing 
an unfamiliar item based in the 1700's then chances are I'm 
going to have to look it up. Then guess what, I've learned a 
new word. I love that about books !! I understand the logistics 
of why they changed the text but I wish they hadn't. I understand 
why JKR agreed but again, I wish she hadn't.

Kimberly
*who would have liked to say to those that changed it in 
reference to the UK edition - In the words of Dumbledore 

"Yes,..., blessed as I am with extraordinary brainpower, I 
understood everything you told me," HBP, Amer. Ed. pg. 358