Er, no. If he had said "sounded like", then sure "proper British", but otherwise, "sounded properly British" is correct. You need to use an adverb there, not an adjective.
EDIT: here, I'll give a better explanation. Hey, let's say a proper explanation :P.
When you say "it sounds like British" or "it is British", British is a noun, and refers to the language. To qualify a noun you use an adjective, so you say "proper British".
When you say "it sounds British", however, British is an adjective, and you don't qualify and adjective with another adjective but with an adverb, hence the use of "properly".
Er, no. If he had said "sounded like", then sure "proper British", but otherwise, "sounded properly British" is correct. You need to use an adverb there, not an adjective.
Ahhhh but you see. this is what a British person would say. "I speak proper British like what the queen does"
But... You used British as a noun in that sentence, so of course it's "proper"... I fear I might be missing a joke :P
Brits are so "I tell a joke but I sound 100% serious" sometimes, it can be hard to tell. Plus it's the Internet.
Well, I reckon we should toss this conversation in the bin, and, er... bloody something.
(I think I have exhausted all of my British vocabulary, sadly).
I've only read the original ones, although I know the American version is edited to sound less British. Actually, I even have the original book 4 where Harry's parents die in the wrong order and I was all speculating about what that meant when it was just a mistake :S
(I have the children covers, which are the only ones that were sold in France for some reason. However I've been wanting to buy the Canadian pocket version with the adult covers, but then they decided not to publish the last book. Just the first six. Yeah, that makes sense.)
Well she wrote the books in British English and, if I remember from her interviews, then sent it to her editor for the American version, who would go over it and change it to sound more American. So so me it's more of a... localised version, I guess?
Which I find silly since it takes place in Britain, it seems more normal that they'd speak British anyways. And it's not like it's going to hurt American readers to learn British words and expressions.
Considering the British version is also the one that was sold in Canada and France (the only other two countries that I've checked) it seems to me that it's the "real" version, and the American one is an adapted version, not quite a translation but not quite the original either.
EDIT: Thinking about it, I think a bit part of it is how the first three books were released in British English only, then "converted" and released in the US months later, as a translation. Then it's true that they were released at the same time once the series was really famous, but I'd guess that it was just the British release being delayed until after the American version was ready.
I wouldn't say the British ones are the "originals," so much as one version is published by Bloomsbury, the other by Scholastic.
Except the American books aren't the Bloomsbury books sold in America, they're the original Harry Potter books, localized for an American audience. While most of it is minor stuff, and it gets more minor as the series goes on, it's still different.
Also, thanks to the US, everybody gets a "Sorcerer's Stone" movie rather than a Philosopher's Stone movie. Yay Warner Bros.? Doesn't seem quite fair. :P
As far as the actual covers go, I like the American covers the most. I don't like the style of the British "normal/child" covers, maybe they're just too bright or something? By contrast, the "adult" covers are just...bland. At least throw some style into it, like Germany did. :P
I propose a solution for the "childish book cover" problem.
I like the adult covers, actually. I find them simple and to the point. I probably would have chosen them if I had been given a choice. Didn't even know they existed for years.
While it boggles my mind that they thought "people won't know what the Philosopher Stone is", I can't be too hard on them renaming it that way. The French first book is, well... I hate the translation :P I don't blame the translater, only the publisher, who obviously asked him to dumb it down. So, first it's called "Harry Potter Goes to Wizard School", then you have several scenes simply cut off, and you have added explanation about how "in wizard school, there are houses"...-_-'
It just annoys me how people assume children = stupid. So they're going to be given lots of weird wizard words and concepts that don't actually exist, but still the publisher thought "they won't understand the concept of houses, we need to add an explanation on how it's a weird wizard stuff!"
How, and the French covers suck too. I do like the American covers but overall I think the British adult covers are my favourite. It's a shame they don't have a real pocket version. The only one I saw advertised "almost as big as the hardcover!" well, no, that's not what I want, but thanks :P
I would like to note that the change from Philosophers Stone to Sorcerers stone is stupid. so I agree. But here's the thing. A lot of people everywhere don't know or care what the philosophers stone is. people will look it up if they are interested.
here's the thing. in the USA: Children= stupid.
Children + No Child Left Behind = more stupid
Children + No Child Left Behind + Dumbed down books = more stupid
Children + Explanations they can understand = smarter
Try that people. don't dumb it down, No one did for me. I now read at a better than most high school graduates.
I like the british childish covers. A friend of mine has one of those ones. He also has a poster for the Philosophers stone. He's awesome.
The thing is, I'm pretty sure I remember a Scrooge story with the Philosopher stone in it (as in, Scrooge Mc Duck). So it's not like it's unheard of in stuff that children might read.
And even if it was the reader's first time hearing about it, there is no reason why it would be any weirder than all the new things in the book.
And... I haven't read the book (I mean the American version) but I can't imagine that every instance of "Philosopher's Stone" was replaced with "Sorcerer's Stone". So changing it only in the title is... very weird.
I guess they thought "people won't buy it because they won't understand the title". But as I said the French title is even worse... >.>
However I have to say, I don't think the changed titled should have been used for the movie. They went into the trouble of getting British actors and everything, and then they put the American title? When everybody already knows it's a changed title? (okay, maybe some people didn't at the time, but still).
I seriously think that they should have gone with the original title for the movie. It would have made much more sense.
(And the French version of the movie should have used another title than the first book's title. Like, the actual translation of the title. Just saying.)
The thing is, I'm pretty sure I remember a Scrooge story with the Philosopher stone in it (as in, Scrooge Mc Duck). So it's not like it's unheard of in stuff that children might read.
And even if it was the reader's first time hearing about it, there is no reason why it would be any weirder than all the new things in the book.
That's one thing I found hilarious: Why is a Sorcerer's Stone any clearer than a Philosopher's Stone? If they hadn't heard about the Philosopher's Stone, I don't see how it would be any more confusing than the Sorcerer's Stone, which is ANOTHER THING that they've never heard about that does the exact same thing. The name would be unknown either way.
And... I haven't read the book (I mean the American version) but I can't imagine that every instance of "Philosopher's Stone" was replaced with "Sorcerer's Stone". So changing it only in the title is... very weird.
There you'd be wrong. They did go through and change every instance of Philosopher's Stone to Sorcerer's Stone, just as they did in the Warner Bros. film.
And... I haven't read the book (I mean the American version) but I can't imagine that every instance of "Philosopher's Stone" was replaced with "Sorcerer's Stone". So changing it only in the title is... very weird.
believe me, it is one of the only books I will read more than once. they did. They searched through the book and replaced every philosopher with sorcerer.
I didn't realise Sorcerer's Stone was another name for the Philosopher's Stone (honestly, I only know it as "pierre philosophale"). I assumed they called it Sorcerer's Stone because there are sorcerers in the books. So, you know, there is a sorcerer, he has a stone, that's the Sorcerer's Stone. Capitalised because it's a title.
While it might sound ridiculous that they'd change it only to replace it with something that means the same thing, I feel relieved that they didn't dumb it down to the point I thought they did.
I didn't pay much attention to what they were calling it when I saw the movie since at the time I couldn't understand stuff spoken with a British accent anyways so I only depended on the subtitles. (I know "a British accent" is vague. Let's say I didn't understand any of the 10,000+ existing ones).
I remember the first time I saw Love Actually, I didn't even notice that two of the characters were speaking back and forth in different languages. Since you know, both were subtitled and I couldn't understand what the people were saying anyways. Now I wonder how I could not have noticed, since Portuguese and English are pretty different
Wait, they localise (note the "s", not "z" you heathen colonials! ) books to American English in the US? Isn't that a tremendous waste of money and time just to placate a few Alabama rednecks who are probably mostly illiterate anyway? Surely the sheer majority of the American population are able to cope with a few extra "u"s here and there. They don't bother localising American English books to normal English over here, there's no point.
And for the record, I can't stand Harry Potter. Unoriginal derivative rubbish. Though I will acknowledge its always beneficial effect of getting children reading.
I agree, no point. but apparently they don't localise all of them here. (by the way, my computer spellcheck SVCKS!) For Example: Hitchhikers Guide, all of them are proper British English. American English came from morons who didn't know how to spell.
Isn't that a tremendous waste of money and time just to placate a few Alabama rednecks who are probably mostly illiterate anyway?
Literally nobody in America has a problem distinguishing between -or/-our and -ize/-ise. I don't know why they bother localizing those things, but it's not to aid comprehension.
American English came from morons who didn't know how to spell.
Language is a tool that exists to facilitate communication; it changes and evolves with time. As arbitrary constructs, no language can be said to be objectively better than another until you define a metric with which to measure them. Many languages are fabricated because they excel at a specific thing, for example. Sign language, programming languages, and so on.
Wait, they localise (note the "s", not "z" you heathen colonials! ) books to American English in the US?
I don't think so. From what I've read (yes, I researched it since earlier today) it's not quite like that. The spelling is kept in Harry Potter for instance (I think. they don't actually say whether it is or not so I assumed it meant it was. I mean otherwise they would have specified, right?) and many British expressions are, but things like "jumper", which means sweater in British English but is a type of dress in American English, and therefore confusing, was replaced with "sweater".
Apart from "Philosopher" becoming "Sorcerer", the changes seem to be in that vein, fairly small and still keeping the British feel to the story while removing things that would get confusing.
Of course, I'd have to read it and compare but I'm not about to re-buy all the books just for that, and the copies I could borrow from libraries here would all be British.
Language is a tool that exists to facilitate communication; it changes and evolves with time. As arbitrary constructs, no language can be said to be objectively better than another until you define a metric with which to measure them.
I wouldn't phrase it that way but that's how I stand to. While I prefer British spellings because I'm used to them, American spellings can't really be considered inferior any more than you can say "British English is inferior because they just copied French spelling without any regard to pronunciation". American English just made it more logically spelt according to the way it is pronounced, which is perfectly fine. No reason to complicate things, since language is a tool and therefore made to simplify communication, not complicate it.
Not sure exactly how and when that happened, but spelling evolves. I could talk about the 1990 French spelling reform but I fear not many people would be able to relate. The point is that things aren't written the same way they used to be. It's always hard when it changes and you were used to the old way, but language evolving is a good thing since the rest (culture, politics, items to name) change too.
I think the thing with English is that it's more "to the people". It just changes, like that. As a result, it changed in the US but not elsewhere.
Compare with France, that has everything standardised with some kind of international spelling committee or whatever so the reforms are applied in every French-speaking country at once. And the Académie Française which only write a few letters of their dictionary a year, which results in new words appearing much less often. So French changes less and when it does, the changes are applied everywhere.
(Not that there aren't differences in words and expressions. Just not in spelling).
Going back to English, Canadian English is for instance closer to French, due to being spoken in a bilingual country. I don't think I've heard people from other English-speaking country call napkins "serviettes" for instance. But it's also close to the US while being part of the Commonwealth, which gives it influences from both spellings, leading to things like "Tire Centre".
As long as you understand each other, that's all that matters though. just keep in mind that there is no "right" spelling between the American or British one. Just because one of them was "there first" doesn't mean it's right, or we're all spelling things wrongs since other spellings were there first.
Wow, you threw me off for a while, nik... splitting the thread like that.
EDIT: Okay, umm...
1) Why DID they change the name to Sorcerer's Stone?
2) It's true that while reading Harry Potter books 6 and 7, I had to look up British slang more than once.
(e.g. "[...] take the mickey out of him," and "He has, to use the common phrase, 'done a bunk.'")
3) And most importantly, at least American's drive on the correct side of the road.
you know, the one word that I found the pronunciation changed instead of spelling is Macabre, where I'm pretty sure we vocally remove the "re".
correct me if I'm wrong and it is supposed to be pronounced that way
According to Wikipedia:
Macabre (pronounced "mak-kahb", IPA: /məˈkɑːb/ - American English; IPA: /məˈkɑːbrə/ - British English; IPA: /ma.kabʁ/ - original French pronunciation )
So, American English, compared with British English, removed the "re", indeed. However that makes the word 2 syllables long, same as in French.
The funny thing is I thought "macabre" was pronounced "mak-kah-ber".
Dear, Strong Bad!
Here is some little questions:
1. Has you some time play football?
2. How did you seen out when you was a
baby?
3. How did you think you came's to
seen out when you are wery old?
Viklas
Sweden
----
STRONG BAD: Oh really? {holding back laughter} Never would have guessed you weren't from around here. Lessee here, what's the best way to answer this one...
{begins typing, with subtitles included. Synthesized European music starts playing.}
STRONG BAD: For Viklas. Hi? {Sup, Viklas?}
1. Prehaps! I'm've was to make football often times. {I love football. It's the best.} Play? Know. {Oh wait, are you asking about soccer?} Best football results twice again. {I hate soccer. It's the worst.}
2. Every age I have seen out as a baby. {I was one hot baby.} I think I has the solution: {All the girl babies were like...} width times height. {"check out that hot baby."}
3. As a wery old, I can fathom the scene to be with me. {I didn't know what you were talking about here.} Looking always as I ever did. {Hey, send me some of those Swedish fish.} It was not came's. {Ooh! And Swedish meatballs!} He borrowed mine. {That would be awesome.}
{music stops}
STRONG BAD: Okay, Viklas, I hope that answers your questions. I think we're on the same page. Unfortunately, yours has a big F on it.
I agree, no point. but apparently they don't localise all of them here. (by the way, my computer spellcheck SVCKS!) For Example: Hitchhikers Guide, all of them are proper British English. American English came from morons who didn't know how to spell.
I think thats a tad harsh. British English is different from the english that was used in colonial times. In fact, if they were too hear our language today, they would claim we have ruined it (much like the claims with US english, or Txting)! US english and Modern UK english simply evolved along different paths. Neither are really all that closer to 'proper' english than eachother.
Also, what thread did this used to be from? The first post confused me!
Comments
EDIT: here, I'll give a better explanation. Hey, let's say a proper explanation :P.
When you say "it sounds like British" or "it is British", British is a noun, and refers to the language. To qualify a noun you use an adjective, so you say "proper British".
When you say "it sounds British", however, British is an adjective, and you don't qualify and adjective with another adjective but with an adverb, hence the use of "properly".
Ahhhh but you see. this is what a British person would say. "I speak proper British like what the queen does"
Brits are so "I tell a joke but I sound 100% serious" sometimes, it can be hard to tell. Plus it's the Internet.
Well, I reckon we should toss this conversation in the bin, and, er... bloody something.
(I think I have exhausted all of my British vocabulary, sadly).
ha.
---
EDIT: Which Harry Potter?
This (US):
There is a difference.
(I have the children covers, which are the only ones that were sold in France for some reason. However I've been wanting to buy the Canadian pocket version with the adult covers, but then they decided not to publish the last book. Just the first six. Yeah, that makes sense.)
I also remember wondering that same thing about Book 4.
Which I find silly since it takes place in Britain, it seems more normal that they'd speak British anyways. And it's not like it's going to hurt American readers to learn British words and expressions.
Considering the British version is also the one that was sold in Canada and France (the only other two countries that I've checked) it seems to me that it's the "real" version, and the American one is an adapted version, not quite a translation but not quite the original either.
EDIT: Thinking about it, I think a bit part of it is how the first three books were released in British English only, then "converted" and released in the US months later, as a translation. Then it's true that they were released at the same time once the series was really famous, but I'd guess that it was just the British release being delayed until after the American version was ready.
Also, thanks to the US, everybody gets a "Sorcerer's Stone" movie rather than a Philosopher's Stone movie. Yay Warner Bros.? Doesn't seem quite fair. :P
As far as the actual covers go, I like the American covers the most. I don't like the style of the British "normal/child" covers, maybe they're just too bright or something? By contrast, the "adult" covers are just...bland. At least throw some style into it, like Germany did. :P
I propose a solution for the "childish book cover" problem.
While it boggles my mind that they thought "people won't know what the Philosopher Stone is", I can't be too hard on them renaming it that way. The French first book is, well... I hate the translation :P I don't blame the translater, only the publisher, who obviously asked him to dumb it down. So, first it's called "Harry Potter Goes to Wizard School", then you have several scenes simply cut off, and you have added explanation about how "in wizard school, there are houses"...-_-'
It just annoys me how people assume children = stupid. So they're going to be given lots of weird wizard words and concepts that don't actually exist, but still the publisher thought "they won't understand the concept of houses, we need to add an explanation on how it's a weird wizard stuff!"
How, and the French covers suck too. I do like the American covers but overall I think the British adult covers are my favourite. It's a shame they don't have a real pocket version. The only one I saw advertised "almost as big as the hardcover!" well, no, that's not what I want, but thanks :P
here's the thing. in the USA: Children= stupid.
Children + No Child Left Behind = more stupid
Children + No Child Left Behind + Dumbed down books = more stupid
Children + Explanations they can understand = smarter
Try that people. don't dumb it down, No one did for me. I now read at a better than most high school graduates.
I like the british childish covers. A friend of mine has one of those ones. He also has a poster for the Philosophers stone. He's awesome.
I'm done now
Okay I have to admit this cracked me up for some time.
Actually I want to print them and use them on my desk...
And even if it was the reader's first time hearing about it, there is no reason why it would be any weirder than all the new things in the book.
And... I haven't read the book (I mean the American version) but I can't imagine that every instance of "Philosopher's Stone" was replaced with "Sorcerer's Stone". So changing it only in the title is... very weird.
I guess they thought "people won't buy it because they won't understand the title". But as I said the French title is even worse... >.>
However I have to say, I don't think the changed titled should have been used for the movie. They went into the trouble of getting British actors and everything, and then they put the American title? When everybody already knows it's a changed title? (okay, maybe some people didn't at the time, but still).
I seriously think that they should have gone with the original title for the movie. It would have made much more sense.
(And the French version of the movie should have used another title than the first book's title. Like, the actual translation of the title. Just saying.)
There you'd be wrong. They did go through and change every instance of Philosopher's Stone to Sorcerer's Stone, just as they did in the Warner Bros. film.
believe me, it is one of the only books I will read more than once. they did. They searched through the book and replaced every philosopher with sorcerer.
While it might sound ridiculous that they'd change it only to replace it with something that means the same thing, I feel relieved that they didn't dumb it down to the point I thought they did.
I didn't pay much attention to what they were calling it when I saw the movie since at the time I couldn't understand stuff spoken with a British accent anyways so I only depended on the subtitles. (I know "a British accent" is vague. Let's say I didn't understand any of the 10,000+ existing ones).
I remember the first time I saw Love Actually, I didn't even notice that two of the characters were speaking back and forth in different languages. Since you know, both were subtitled and I couldn't understand what the people were saying anyways. Now I wonder how I could not have noticed, since Portuguese and English are pretty different
...and I'm totally splitting this off into a different topic.
It's gloating time!
Have you trying to split the Sam and Max 2010 thread by any chance?
And for the record, I can't stand Harry Potter. Unoriginal derivative rubbish. Though I will acknowledge its always beneficial effect of getting children reading.
Literally nobody in America has a problem distinguishing between -or/-our and -ize/-ise. I don't know why they bother localizing those things, but it's not to aid comprehension.
Also most of us know how to read "gaol"!
Language is a tool that exists to facilitate communication; it changes and evolves with time. As arbitrary constructs, no language can be said to be objectively better than another until you define a metric with which to measure them. Many languages are fabricated because they excel at a specific thing, for example. Sign language, programming languages, and so on.
I don't think so. From what I've read (yes, I researched it since earlier today) it's not quite like that. The spelling is kept in Harry Potter for instance (I think. they don't actually say whether it is or not so I assumed it meant it was. I mean otherwise they would have specified, right?) and many British expressions are, but things like "jumper", which means sweater in British English but is a type of dress in American English, and therefore confusing, was replaced with "sweater".
Apart from "Philosopher" becoming "Sorcerer", the changes seem to be in that vein, fairly small and still keeping the British feel to the story while removing things that would get confusing.
Of course, I'd have to read it and compare but I'm not about to re-buy all the books just for that, and the copies I could borrow from libraries here would all be British.
I wouldn't phrase it that way but that's how I stand to. While I prefer British spellings because I'm used to them, American spellings can't really be considered inferior any more than you can say "British English is inferior because they just copied French spelling without any regard to pronunciation". American English just made it more logically spelt according to the way it is pronounced, which is perfectly fine. No reason to complicate things, since language is a tool and therefore made to simplify communication, not complicate it.
I think the thing with English is that it's more "to the people". It just changes, like that. As a result, it changed in the US but not elsewhere.
Compare with France, that has everything standardised with some kind of international spelling committee or whatever so the reforms are applied in every French-speaking country at once. And the Académie Française which only write a few letters of their dictionary a year, which results in new words appearing much less often. So French changes less and when it does, the changes are applied everywhere.
(Not that there aren't differences in words and expressions. Just not in spelling).
Going back to English, Canadian English is for instance closer to French, due to being spoken in a bilingual country. I don't think I've heard people from other English-speaking country call napkins "serviettes" for instance. But it's also close to the US while being part of the Commonwealth, which gives it influences from both spellings, leading to things like "Tire Centre".
As long as you understand each other, that's all that matters though. just keep in mind that there is no "right" spelling between the American or British one. Just because one of them was "there first" doesn't mean it's right, or we're all spelling things wrongs since other spellings were there first.
True words.
correct me if I'm wrong and it is supposed to be pronounced that way
EDIT: Okay, umm...
1) Why DID they change the name to Sorcerer's Stone?
2) It's true that while reading Harry Potter books 6 and 7, I had to look up British slang more than once.
(e.g. "[...] take the mickey out of him," and "He has, to use the common phrase, 'done a bunk.'")
3) And most importantly, at least American's drive on the correct side of the road.
According to Wikipedia:
So, American English, compared with British English, removed the "re", indeed. However that makes the word 2 syllables long, same as in French.
The funny thing is I thought "macabre" was pronounced "mak-kah-ber".
My thought was Mah-kah-bra. so I was close, the Schwa changes it just so slightly
Dear, Strong Bad!
Here is some little questions:
1. Has you some time play football?
2. How did you seen out when you was a
baby?
3. How did you think you came's to
seen out when you are wery old?
Viklas
Sweden
----
STRONG BAD: Oh really? {holding back laughter} Never would have guessed you weren't from around here. Lessee here, what's the best way to answer this one...
{begins typing, with subtitles included. Synthesized European music starts playing.}
STRONG BAD: For Viklas. Hi? {Sup, Viklas?}
1. Prehaps! I'm've was to make football often times. {I love football. It's the best.} Play? Know. {Oh wait, are you asking about soccer?} Best football results twice again. {I hate soccer. It's the worst.}
2. Every age I have seen out as a baby. {I was one hot baby.} I think I has the solution: {All the girl babies were like...} width times height. {"check out that hot baby."}
3. As a wery old, I can fathom the scene to be with me. {I didn't know what you were talking about here.} Looking always as I ever did. {Hey, send me some of those Swedish fish.} It was not came's. {Ooh! And Swedish meatballs!} He borrowed mine. {That would be awesome.}
{music stops}
STRONG BAD: Okay, Viklas, I hope that answers your questions. I think we're on the same page. Unfortunately, yours has a big F on it.
—Stark Dålig
I think thats a tad harsh. British English is different from the english that was used in colonial times. In fact, if they were too hear our language today, they would claim we have ruined it (much like the claims with US english, or Txting)! US english and Modern UK english simply evolved along different paths. Neither are really all that closer to 'proper' english than eachother.
Also, what thread did this used to be from? The first post confused me!
Also, I find it amusing that I write British English, but it gets proof-read by an American. Lawl.
I don't take part of that.