May 2021
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Gebo
May '21
1

I watched Stephen Fry talk about his audio production of the Harry Potter Series.
In the American vers. it's called Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's stone. In the British Vers. it's called Harry potter and the Philosopher's stone.
He jokes that the name change was because Americans are afraid of the word "Philosophers".

Which got me thinking about the difference.

From my understanding philosophers are thinkers. People that ask questions like "if a tree falls in the forest, and no one's there to hear it, does it make a sound?" or "What is the sound of one hand clapping?"

I'm guessing British folks don't call these people philosophers. What do they call them? And can anyone explain the double use of philosopher as a magic user and hypothetical thinker? :astonished:

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thecrystalrook
May '21

I think you're, ironically, overthinking it. Philosophy isn't an English word to begin with, it's Greek. So I'd say they just call them philsophers overseas in other English-speaking countries.

DasIstWunderblyat
May '21

Not an English nor English-speaker but IIRC they are called the same.

It is rather to avoid American readers being intimidated by the more complex word and the association of 'philosopher' being boring-ass thinking old man, I think. It is replaced by 'sorcerer' maybe to reflect the book content more and entice readers by saying: "There's magic in this book!"

NickRowler
May '21

The Philosopher's Stone is not something that JK Rowling created, it comes from old legends. I guess reading up on it, the myth came along during the whole alchemy mysticism where people thought you could create magical items. Similar to in the Harry Potter books, it is suppose to grant eternal life.

I guess the reason why the name was changed for the books was that American publishers thought kids won't know what the Philosopher's Stone myth is and they wanted kids to know it was a book about magic.

thetalentedmrwulf
May '21

@NickRowler has the right of it. It was a marketing move to hammer home the magic part of things as very few Americans, and even fewer American children have any clue who Nicholas Flamel and the Philosopher's Stone are. The joke is about American anti-intellectualism that is pervasive in many parts of the country. The Americans that would be "scared" of philosophers would also be scared by sorcerers (and that's why a ton of libraries and schools banned Harry Potter.)

bakasama25
May '21

I think you're overthinking a minor detail. The Philosopher's Stone is just a reference to a sought after alchemy artifact that can transmutate lead into gold.

darthmongoose
May '21

We definitely call philosophers philosophers here. The issue was that the American publishers thought that the reference to the philosopher's stone from mythology would be lost on American children, and also that "philosopher" was an intimidating word that sounded stuffy and intellectual rather than magical, so they changed it to The Sorcerer's Stone.

There are actually a bunch of other changes in the American version that are most pronounced in the earlier books, like mentions of jumpers changed to sweaters (in American English, a jumper is a dress), gardens changed to yards, bins changed to trash cans etc. At the height of "Pottermania" I remember some American fans considered it a sign of a true fan if they'd read the British version and knew British terms like jumper. They'd go around saying "bloody hell" all the time... it was very cringe-inducing.