posted
This is a really random question, but if anyone has the British version of the book I'd appreciate it if you could find the answer for me.
In Ch 12 just after they find out Snape is the headmaster Hermione says "Merlin's pants." Is that what she says in the British version or has the word been changed?
posted
The expression can be interpreted the same, even though pants means different things on opposite sides of the Atlantic.
Interestingly, I submitted a bit of children's poetry for critique on a writer's workshop I belong to--
quote:Stand up in a forest, as deep as the other. There's no help for you now, not father nor mother! The goblins that dwell here are both cunning and wild And they'd just as soon eat one as look at a child. If you can summon a wizard, you might have a chance. Or the goblins might barter your life for. . . your pants. Not a bad bargain, as such bargains go, And thankfully, here they never see snow.
Critiquers on the Eastern side of the Atlantic expressed concern that there'd be a kid wandering around the rest of the picture book nude from the waist down; folks on this side of the Atlantic didn't hardly notice it at all.
(By the way, I liked Ron's one-uppmanship with "Merlin's baggiest Y-fronts.") Posts: 14554 | Registered: Dec 1999
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quote:The expression can be interpreted the same, even though pants means different things on opposite sides of the Atlantic.
My reason for asking was based on someone's questioning of a picture of jeans along with the words "Merlin's pants!" As the British vocab is often changed in the American versions I wanted to check to see what it said there.
Posts: 2867 | Registered: May 2005
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posted
Given that Ron refers to Y-fronts a little later, I'm guessing that wasn't changed from the British version, and that Hermione was using "pants" in the British sense of underwear.
Posts: 910 | Registered: May 2000
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posted
Yeah, I even found "jumper" in the American version of one of the later books, a word that is traditionally changed in almost all books with an American vs. British edition.
Posts: 21182 | Registered: Sep 2004
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