Since the Canadian version is the same as the British, I've always found it a bit odd (and in cases like this, oddly thorough) that they bother to Americanize a book with a British setting by a British author.
In some cases, it's silly. In others, I can sort of see it. Changing "jumper" to "sweater" made sense at the start, because you don't really want to stop the reader long enough for him to imagine Molly knitting Harry a nice, emerald green pinafore. It wouldn't kill the scene, and you'd know that probably wasn't what they meant, but enough of those little things, and it gets distracting. Now that the confusion is cleared up, it's no longer necessary, but when they started, they didn't know that half the world's internet resources would be tied up by HP conversations, in which people would be able to say, "Oh, a jumper's a sweater." (Having different words for the same thing is fun; having the same word for two entirely different things... that's where it gets confusing, especially if the absurd version could, in some circumstance--say, the weirdness of the wizarding world--make sense.)
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Date: 2007-03-28 05:10 am (UTC)In some cases, it's silly. In others, I can sort of see it. Changing "jumper" to "sweater" made sense at the start, because you don't really want to stop the reader long enough for him to imagine Molly knitting Harry a nice, emerald green pinafore. It wouldn't kill the scene, and you'd know that probably wasn't what they meant, but enough of those little things, and it gets distracting. Now that the confusion is cleared up, it's no longer necessary, but when they started, they didn't know that half the world's internet resources would be tied up by HP conversations, in which people would be able to say, "Oh, a jumper's a sweater." (Having different words for the same thing is fun; having the same word for two entirely different things... that's where it gets confusing, especially if the absurd version could, in some circumstance--say, the weirdness of the wizarding world--make sense.)