The Stephen Fry versions of the Potter books.

[nikkalmati]

No: HPFGUIDX 192388



--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "John" <oriondruid at ...> wrote:
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> John (Oriondruid)
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> I feel that the 'alterations' whilst perhaps making comprehension of meanings easier for young American readers is actually a bit condescending. It almost amounts to saying 'You're not intelligent enough to work this out sweety'. :o(
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> C'mon, kids these days are so savvy about things and if they are confused by a UK English words or phrases, like say jumper or car park  they are perfectly capable of looking it up online, and by so doing will actually learn something useful about life and language in the UK. As to adding actual American 'substitutions', such as switching sidewalk for pavement that is just absurd! Why not simply relocate the whole story to New England, modify the plotline, characterisation and dialogue accordingly and get it over with? ;o)
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Nikkalmati

Well, when Scholastic started, they had no idea whether the books woud go over at all and they wanted to make things as easy as possible and less "strange".  I understand your being upset, because it implies that the American version is the "right" one and the story had to be corrected.  That makes the changes condescending to the Brits.  I doubt they thought about it that way.  They just wanted to make the books easy and popular.  It turns out they underestimated the children of the US.  It is not all that different anyway is it?

  I did want to point out that as a direct result of HP (IMHO) various British words and phrases have migrated here to the US and have been seen in other contexts to the enrichment of our common language.  (BTW where did "snark" come from if not from the UK?).

Nikkalmati

>John
     
> By the way, as I said in my intro post when I joined earlier today, I will continue to use UK English expressions and spelling when posting here, despite what all the little red lines beneath my 'misspellings' try and force me to do. :o)  I trust that everyone here, be they American, Brit or from wherever is quite capable of working out my meaning from the context and if not then try asking your kids, they might just surprise you with their grasp of 'Britspeak'. :o)
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Nikkalmati

I don't seem to have a spell checker  when I do a reply or I don't know where it is.  Combine that with my gernerally poor spelling and I have a lot to ask forgiveness for from the group.  : ).  So, don't worry about any little variations here and there.  I was surprised to hear that spell check only comes in an American format.  How rude!

Nikkalmati