trains and Harry Potter was: Re: crumpets & muffins

[Tony Glaser]

>--On Thursday, January 18, 2001 10:02 am -0500 Tony Glaser
><tonyglaser at MINDSPRING.COM> wrote:
>
>>>I was in the train station today, reading my US-bought Harry Potter and
>>>came across Harry and Ron eating English muffins.  I thought "I wonder
>>>whether the original version had 'muffins' or 'crumpets'."  So, went to
>>>the newstand, picked up the UK edition, and found the answer:  crumpets.
>>
>>
>>Train station? So you must have been in the US, surely! :)
>
>I go to the train station all the time here.  What else should I call it
>here?

I don't think I had ever heard of a "train station" until I came to
the US. In the UK it would surely be called a "railway station" or
just "station".

>
>>>Now, why the editors at Scholastic Books think that "sorcerer" is the US
>>>translation of "philosopher"...well, that's another matter.
>>
>>I read somewhere (Newsweek or Time, I think) that this was done to
>>defuse potential protests from Christian fundamentalists and others
>>who would perceive "sorcerer" as suggestive of Satanism etc. etc.
>
>That reasoning is backward:  It was changed from _philosopher's_ in the UK
>to _sorcerer's_ in the US.  (The UK version came first.)  Instead, it would
>seem that the US publisher felt that 'philosopher' was too uninviting a
>word for a title.

You're quite right. Was there another Harry Potter book which got its
title changed perhaps?

Tony Glaser