Found this in the comments on Mugglenet. Thought you might be interested:

VERY minor spoilers follow (assuming this is at all true)

Sounds plausible enough to me, except for the part about the last chapter written from Luna's POV. But then, we can't really predict JKR, can we?

 

Sounds fairly plausible, but I have to ask this...They actually replace British slang with American slang in the books? WTF is the point in that? It actively encourages fanfic authors to do no research into the country that the book is set in or the language that is used there. The books are set in Britain, so why shouldn't British slang be used? That an actual serious question I would like an answer to people. Does it assist Americans in the enjoyment of the books? Does it make it less difficult to read? What?

 

The simple answer is that it has nothing to do with fanfiction.

It's all about marketing as I understand it. People are naturally drawn to what they are familiar with. Slang terms (which is what they are swapping) are fairly unique between the US and UK in some areas. When you localize the slang you make it easier for the reader to relate to the environment of the story and be drawn into it. This, in turn, creates a more popular story and thus a better selling book.

I'm sure there's other issues to it, but this is (in simple terms) how it was explained to me a while back by a professor.

...then there's always the issue of American slang being far superior to silly Euro-slang.

 

The part that intrigues me the most is that last chapter, written in a point of view that isn't Harry's (although it could be Harry, since he's always on front covers of various magazines, but then I don't see the point of presenting the information like that).

In the whole series, the only chapters that weren't written in his point of view were at the beginning of the books: chapter 1 of PS, chapter 1 of GoF and chapters 1 and 2 of HBP (except a very small passage in PS, written in Ron's PoV, during the Gryffindor/Hufflepuff Quidditch match if I remember correctly). So it would mean that, in the last chapter of DH, we don't focus on Harry anymore... Finishing the series through the eyes of a character that isn't the main one seems odd to me, unless of course Harry is killed. But maybe I'm reading too much into this. Assuming it's true, too.

And Mordecai: I think that JKR herself doesn't like much the idea of her book being 'translated' into American English. That said, I would like very much to avoid another version of the "Mordecai vs. America" thread.

 

Tinn I had no intention of starting that, I actually meant it as a serious question. Why would they take the book linguistically out of where it is set? It makes absolutely no sense to me. If it was set in America, I wouldn't expect all the Americanisms to be taken out of it before I read it.

 

Do you ever get tired of bashing all things American?

I'm sorry, but nobody will enjoy a book if they have to look up slang just to understand what the hell a character is saying. It's the same principle as adding extra language tracks.

I understand the basics, like bloody, git, fancy, bollocks, and the like, but not much more. I can safely say the rest for most other Americans. Things like "cock up", "cor", calling expensive things "dear", doing a "do" (party), "excuse me" and "pardon me" being a result of either belching and farting (and not so much intruding into one's personal space), the feeling of "can't be be "fagged", "fruity" and the like all go over my head when I'm reading.

Of course, now I know them, but it'd be an awful spoil to have to look them up every odd page.

Get your head out of your ass. Why don't you demand the movie industry to force foreign viewers to watch the movie in the film's native language?

 

That makes little sense to me as well, literarily speaking, but then I don't know much about the differences between American and British English, so I'm not well-placed to talk about it. I'll also say (although I know the comparison is not really valid) that when the book is translated into French, the translator (Jean-François Ménard, methinks) sometimes has to betray JKR's writing in order to make the text more fluid; when he has to translate idioms, for example.

EDIT: Damn you, you fast-typing sheep lover.

 

No Amersion, I don't get tired of bashing all things American, however, in this case, I wasn't bashing.