HARRY POTTER: MUM SHALL STAY MUM

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By Newsweek Editors

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Notice how British "Harry Potter" has seemed lately? If you're reading the Scholastic-published edition of the most recent installment, it's not just in your head. The series, which is "translated" from British English to U.S. English by Scholastic editors (all changes are OK'd by author J. K. Rowling), is now leaving in more of the original Brit language than ever. The reason? "Readers have become more accustomed to the world," says Arthur Levine, one of Rowling's Scholastic editors.

That, and a backlash by "Potter" purists who prefer the charm of British words such as nutter ("maniac" in book two) or crumpets ("English muffins" in book one). "I get into very heated debates about this," says Ngaio Palmer, an Oxford grad student who ships the British versions to her 16-year-old brother in Chicago. "The lack of faith in the intelligence of U.S. readers has been insulting." There have been so many requests by Americans for the British edition, in fact, that all e-mails sent to U.K. publisher Bloomsbury receive an automatic response saying the publisher can't sell its version in U.S. stores. (Zealous fans buy it online from the U.K. or Canada, which also uses the Bloomsbury book.) But there's little need for imports anymore. The changes in book five are slight, like changing "colour" to "color," and Levine says the remainder of the series will retain most of Rowling's original wording. "Mum," in other words, is no longer changed to "Mom." "Potter" fans are relieved. "I mean, really, would we want Ron calling Percy a butthead instead of a git or prat?" asks self-described " 'Potter' fanatic" Becky Boushley. But with the Britishisms intact in book five, she's pleased as punch. Or as Rowling would pen, she's chuffed to bits.

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