American editor underestimates the intelligence of Harry Potter readers

When I got my first Harry Potter book (the Scholastic edition) I noticed that it used American spellings (things like "color" instead of "colour"). And the name of the book didn't match the movie (Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone).

Later at another bookstore I found the Canadian edition (from Raincoast books), and it had much prettier cover art so I bought the rest of my Potter books from there. And I was so unhappy about my American book that I ended up buying Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone from Raincoast too.

It's not just the spelling that's Americanized in the Scholastic edition. A quaffle is compared to a soccer ball (not a football), a Beater's bat is like "a short baseball bat" (not a rounder's bat, whatever that is), and Hermione has a crying jag in "the "bathroom" (not the toilets). All that in about 4 pages.

Is this interference called for? There's no question for me personally - half the charm of the Potter stories is their Britishness (I'm pretty nerdy about my love of things English) and I can't help but feel that the American books are butchered. But they're more approachable for American kids. Does this dumb them down too much?

EDIT: I've changed the title to reflect what I see as the real issue. But this discussion has brought home the fact that many Americans see everything un-American as, at best, not the sort of thing impressionable kids should be exposed to.

Oh no! That wasn't silly enough!

*beats dead horse*

:). I am no publisher, but i would assume that if your spelling more closely resembles British English that may be why they went with that.

Also someone may have mentioned that both versions are available in Canada? I don't know about this, but I think someone else said that.

*lets poor horse rest in peace*

*takes a swing at the horse*

Presumably, Heather, after the movie came out, 'Mum' and 'Happy Christmas' became a lot more comprehensible?

They were no longer edited after book 1, and by the time the first movie came out (2001), books 2 (1998), 3 (1999) and 4 (2000) were published using Mum and Happy Christmas.

ssbuckeye - yes, I've bought both the US and Canadian editions in local bookstores here in my part of Canada (the Canadian edition uses the British text).

"they're appealing to the lowest common denominator in order to attract the widest audience. "

IOW, pgeorgian, standard American English is, in your view, "the lowest common denominator?" Interesting, that. And you think others have an "inferiority complex?" lol lol lol!!

*applies paddles, shouts 'clear' and monitors equine vital signs*

Our languages are all descended from the same root proto-language about...(help me out here, Athena and/or Nomo)  20,000 years ago?...

for any of us to claim superiority or insinuate that any other version is incorrect... is kinda...well ..silly(daft)...

no, athena, that's not what i'm saying.  in order to sell to the widest possible market, the books have to be accessible to the least literate readers.  just like newspapers are written at a grade 8 level, they're making the books readable for the least literate kids (and parents, and adults).  they do this in the US because it's such a huge market, it's worthwhile to do so.

that's just a guess.  but if the books are only accessible to the top 10% of young readers, you're not going to sell as many.  they "dumb them down" to widen the market.

and, yes, both versions are available in canada, but only because scholastic sells the american version here.

other than a few spelling patterns, canadian english doesn't bear much resemblance to UK english.  it's much closer to the US.  a better example is south africa, where the spoken english is a combination of english, dutch, and afrikaans.  but they can read "english."

You are completely moronic if you think that changing phrases, like ?mum? to ?mom,? is dumbing down literature for Americans. Both ?mum? and ?mom? are slang for ?mother.? Slang varies between cultures, and sometimes can be misconstrued because of these cultural differences. It is not as if the word ?loquacious? was changed to read ?chatty;? that would be dumbing down. What we are discussing here is a matter of changing phrases and slang to suit various cultures. I?m neither endorsing these small alterations, nor saying that they are wrong, but it is certainly not dumbing down.

I want to show everyone something which may help put this discussion into context:

http://home.comcast.net/~helenajole/Harry.htm l

This shows all changes from the first book (the most heavily edited book I believe).  Looking at these changes ... almost none of them would be difficult for a nine year (is nine really the recommended age for these?) old to deal with.  There are a few British references changed, but really this is the weird part of this discussion to me;  It is a book about british children going to a british school.  Why change:
'Would you care for a sherbet lemon?'

To:


"Would you care for a lemon drop?"

Kids have fantastic imaginations...This will not confuse or bother them.  At least most of them (clearly my opinion coming into focus here).  They will enjoy the immersion into this world they have sitting in their lap.

As for "dumbing down", this is no 1984-like reduction of language, but it is an attempt to change things in an attempt to be easier to read (and I disagree -- see above).  In that sense it is a mild form of dumbing down the text.