UK/US Differences

[Cougie]

Page 305(UK) mid chapter 16

'And in our first year,' said Neville to the group at large, 'he saved that Philological Stone -'
'Philosopher's,' hissed Hermione.

The US version surely has "Philosophers's" replaced with "Sorcerer's". But which word replaces "Philological"?

[chiapetdiz]

page 342 us

Sorcerous

i wish that they hadn't changed the name, it's just dumb! I think it sounds better as the Philosopher's Stone. grrrr.

[highsorcerer]

Agreed. I have no idea why they changed it. Philosphers Stone is a much more historically accurate term. I can't think of a single sane reason why they altered it for the US version.

[English]

Obviously the american version had to follow from the American book 1, but the big question certainly is still WHY???

Was the name changed to give the book more commercial appeal?

Worldwide it is called " Philosophers, " it has only been chenged in America.

[June]

If I'm not wrong, the reason was that the American publishers were trying to attract young kids to buy the book, and felt that "Philosopher's Stone" didn't make any sense for those not familiar with mythology and "Sorcerer's Stone" would make the fantasy content of the book much more clearer to the children, and hence, attract them to buy the book. At that time, Rowling didn't have much clout as yet, and hence didn't make any protest. She did say later that she regretted having giving her consent for the change of name though...

[Nothlit]

Yeah, at this point, if Philosopher's Stone was one of the later books in the series, after the series's reputation had already been established, they probably would have left it alone. But I personally think Scholastic was right in thinking that few American kids would be attracted to any book they felt had to do with "philosophy" even if that's not what the phrase "Philosopher's Stone" means.

[English]

Yeah, a $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$ issue- see how many they can sell. It is still odd that they didn't make the film with the original title, though, in the States.

Hopefully the British version, with words like " skip " rather than " dumpster " will be the one that survives, if only because this is what the author intended.

[Rebecca Spinnet]

Everything in business is about money i am just glad they haven't changed anymore titles does anyone know if they actually change the words inside the book other than Philosopher/Sorcerer words?

[Nothlit]

They change the British "football" to American "soccer." They also changed the British "sherbet lemon" (Dumbledore's office password) to American "lemon drop" in one of the books, but forgot in one of the other books.

If these were novels written for adults, I'd be upset with changing the author's original words. However, since the biggest audience is children, I can understand changing words for the American versions since American kids wouldn't understand the British terminology. There's a fine line between preserving the author's language and keeping the audience from being confused, especially when it comes to children.

It's not really as big a deal as everyone makes it out to be. After all, they've translated the books into dozens of completely foreign languages, and I'm sure those sorts of translations are worse in terms of preserving JKR's original meaning than the British-to-American "translations."

[APWBD]

Does anyone know what "Wotcher" means??? Tonks says it repeatedly to Harry over and over. Is it just slang, or does it actually mean something?

[werebane]

Yea she did. Im guessing that it means like hey

[Cougie]

page 342 us

Sorcerous

I don't think Sorcerous sounds all that different from Sorcerer's. Would Hermione notice any difference when Neville says it? Philosopher's and Philological has a bigger difference.

Anyway, does US versions only use American spellings such as 'mom' and 'color' rather than 'mum' and 'colour' etc?

[English]

I've HEAR the American version, but havn't read it, so its hard to say if spelling is changed, but I'm sure it would be.

" Wocher " is a VERY cockney way of talking- Rowling uses it to show that Tonks is a cockney (obviously!) That kind of thing can't be editted without TOTALLY changing the context. If Tonks was altered to saying " Hey Dude " then suddenly she would be from California, which totally changes the book!

[HuffleDuck]

yeah i agree with Nothlit, the term Philosopher won't attract people in America for some, they might thought it's kinda boring with those philosophy. I at first when reading Harry and found out that it Sorcerer wasn't the orginial title, i was very suprised and i thought philosopher didn't sound right at all. most of American people think so too.

[highsorcerer]

Actually, I'm rather curious; book 5 (US version) contains mostly English versions of words (such as lift instead of elevator). In previous versions, the Christmas gift sent to the Weasley's and Harry was referred to as a sweater, not a jumper (though it was jumper in both US versions of book 5 and in the film CoS). Was it referred to as a jumper in UK versions in previous books.

Also, Harry asked for the exit while trying to get out of the DoM. When I've been in England, all signs that would state "EXIT" in the United States are "WAY OUT" in England (which is a bit amusing, given WAY OUT has a colloqual meaning in the US at least). Is it the same or different in the UK version?