crumpets & muffins

[Jeffrey William McKeough]

Joe Pickett wrote:
>
>But I think the Americanization of the Potter books actually was fairly
>limited. For instance, Harry's friend Ron often uses the word "git" for
>schoolmates he doesn't like. This word is not in most American dictionaries
>and is unfamiliar to American kids and to most of their parents as well.

I think "git" might be catching on, which is good because I like it.

The Americanization has been more limited as the series has
progressed.  By the fourth boothey changed pretty much only thehe
spelling and left a lot of British words.

I thought the Americanization effort was pretty weak.  I can't think
of specific examples since it's been months since I read the books,
but a lot of times there'd be a sentence that had a very British feel
to it, with a bunch of American words tossed in.  The end result was
awkward.

At some point in the series the word choice got confusing.  Some of
the words were American and some were English, so it was difficult to
know what was meant by references to people eating "chips" and
carrying "torches".  It was more annoying than anything.

--
Jeffrey William McKeough
jwm at spdcc.com (or spdcc.net)