British-American Editing Question?

[scalem X]

I wouldn't see why the French wouldn't have: HP et la pierre des philosophes
Apart from that it's longer than the title now.

All Lotr titles seem to be normal translations (Le seigneur des Anneaux,El Señor de los Anillos,...) except for the Dutch one (the first translation) "In de ban van de ring' Which is in fact impossible to translate back into English.
(would be something like: confined within the powers of the ring)

[Giovanna Clairval]

[quote]

Originally Posted by scalem X

I wouldn't see why the French wouldn't have: HP et la pierre des philosophes
Apart from that it's longer than the title now.

Probably... the French, who have a strong tradition in alchemy, considered that their children couldn't twig the original title.

Shame! Nicolas Flaumel has got a street named after him, in Paris, and Pernelle, his wife and companion in the Art, has got another street on her own (but not a patronym: this is France).

All Lotr titles seem to be normal translations (Le seigneur des Anneaux,El Señor de los Anillos,...) except for the Dutch one (the first translation) "In de ban van de ring' Which is in fact impossible to translate back into English.
(would be something like: confined within the powers of the ring)

Aren't the Dutch strange people, Scallywag, stranger than the Belgians? But I must admit that they captured the quintessence of the book (don't know whether Tolkien would have been happy though).

[scalem X]

we call them cheese-eaters, yes. They don't have hills in their country, so they build cheese mountains and they have funny names for all. Like caravan, which is caravan in Belgian-Dutch is called a sleurhut (drag-shed) by them, lol. I think Tolkien had a fair hand in the translating proces. After all some of his friends were Dutchies and it was the first language the novel was translated into.

[Mad Tam McC]

When getting things translated from British English to American English make sure they leave millennium (double n) alone.

It comes from the Latin mille (meaning 1,000) and annus meaning year.

I'm sure you can all work out how the meaning changes if you remove an n!

[bruno-1012]

I read a book recently that suggested the phrase 'to bum a fag' might have different connotations on either side of the pond.

Anyone care to comment?

[Teresa Edgerton]

Originally Posted by bruno-1012

Anyone care to comment?

It certainly could.



While I am not a fan of the religious right, it makes no sense to blame them for the title change from "Philosopher's Stone" to "Sorcerer's Stone." First of all, they weren't going to like the book to begin with. Secondly, as someone suggested, they would find the word "sorcerer" far more sinister than "philosopher." Thirdly, the likelihood of many of them associating the Philosopher's Stone with alchemy or magic is slim.

I'm sure the change was made for one reason only: Because few American children would associate the Philosopher's Stone with magic in any way, shape, or form. The word "philosopher" would only suggest to them a lot of boring old men sitting around and talking about incomprehensible subjects. The original title would not attract American children; J. K. Rowling would have been several million dollars poorer; more to the point, Scholastic would have been about a billion dollars poorer.

And it's not a matter of British children being smarter and American or French children being stupid -- it's whether or not the publishers expect them to have the same cultural references.

[Giovanna Clairval]

My very French children, when they were little, knew nothing about any philosopher's stone. And, having being an Italian child, a bookworm of a child, I can certify than neither I nor my friends knew any alchemic expression.
This is no common cultural reference in Europe, outside literate circles.

[scalem X]

Now that I think of it. I have never read Hairy Potter. But I must say that when I was about the target age I must not have known the meaning of the philosopher's stone either.

[Teresa Edgerton]

I do remember hearing about the Philosopher's Stone when I was in grade school, but it was a passing reference and stayed with me simply because it strongly appealed to me. Hard to tell whether my own children learned about it in school, since I didn't grill them every day about every last bit of information they picked up. Going by what I did see of their lessons and schoolbooks, I'm guessing not, but I could be wrong. Later, they would have heard about it from me, since I was writing about it.

If American school children of the current generation hear anything about it at all (or if any of them remember it if they do) ... about that I have serious doubts.

And whether it might have been something UK school children would be familiar with prior to HP, I couldn't begin to guess. (Although going by how vociferous our UK friends are against the change, it sounds like they did have the cultural referent as children.) Seemingly, Rowling's English publisher thought it would appeal to their young readers on some level -- and if so, they were right.

But I think in places where they changed the name, it was a sensible choice.

[Ursa major]

I'd heard of the Philosopher's Stone when I was a teenager, but for the life of me I can't recall how. (It must have been from some fiction I'd read; we didn't do alchemy at school - I'm not that old.)

I had a set of Arthur Mee's The Children's Encyclopedia - yes, I'm a member of the Mee generation - and some old books such as the Golden Treasury (a book that was already falling apart by the early sixties).

[Teresa Edgerton]

Oh, and on the question of whether American children get fruit and nuts in their Christmas stockings:

My brother and sisters and I got tangerines (along with candy and other small gifts), and my husband says he used to get an orange at the very top. I used to buy tangerines at Christmas for our children, but they didn't like them, so of course I stopped.

I really don't know whether citrus in Christmas stockings was common in the 1940s and 50s, or whether it was just coincidence that both of our families did it. The fact that all this took place in California might have been part of it. Tangerines do start appearing in our grocery stores around Christmas time.

[scalem X]

Of course I can't compare with you, because I don't have Santa.
In Belgium we do exchange gifts at christmas, but the only santa claus we see are those in shops and it's more something to add to the christmas setting, rather than anything else.

But we have Sinterklaas/Sint-Maarten (if you wonder where the idea of santa is coming from), who basically do the same as santa, but they ride a horse and not reindeer and they come in a couple of weeks from now.

Yet after this short intro, the tradition of citrus fruits also exists here. Since Sinterklaas/Sint-Maarten come from spain, they also bring oranges. Mainly it originated because oranges used to be really expensive and you would buy them only for festivities. After all those oranges really had to come from Spain. And even now, although they mostly bring candy, there are still oranges/tangerines.

I guess when Sinterklaas transformed into Santa Claus, the citrus fruit must have sort of stuck?

some pictures:
the man himself
some pictures. Normally there's more food and less toys, but I couldn't find a better picture
the helper (who's black from crawling down chimneys) with some more balanced table of gifts

[iansales]

I thought the citrus fruit in the Christmas stocking was simply a result of their novelty and rarity in the early years of the twentieth century.

Interestingly, until the introduction of the orange into England in the 14th Century, the colour was known as "yellow-red".

[Ursa major]

If my memory serves me well, in the book The Golden Fleece (aka Hercules, My Shipmate) by Robert Graves, the oranges from Majorca were the Golden Apples of the Hesperides.

[Mary Hoffman]

I have come late to this and we seem to have moved on from English-to-American-English editing.

My Stravaganza titles have stayed more or less the same in 28 other languages but The Falconer's Knot has become "Die Farben des Teufels" (The Colours of the Devil) in German. I don't know uif that ophrase means anything to Germans but it certainly doesn't to me!

As for the Philosopher's Stone, I don't think there was a child in the UK in the age group it was orioginally intended for (8-12) who would have got the alchemical connection. But it is explained in the book and I'm tired of peopel (especially American editors) thinking that everything has to be understood at first sight.

Arthur Levine knew those books were going to be a hit no matter what the first one was called.

Mary