Divided by a Common Language under Enchanted Glass

One consequence of the late craze for British fantasies is that US publishers are much less worried about letting young American readers see original British language. Indeed, readers of the sort who know what Hogwarts house they would belong to might even demand those exotic details.

Here’s an example from Diana Wynne Jones’s Enchanted Glass, as a character flips through a telephone book:

“I’ve been through all the Browns twice now,” he told Aidan, “and there’s no Brown of Melstone Manor in here! The wretched crook must be ex-directory. He would be!”

Context makes it easy to figure out that what this British character calls “ex-directory” an American would call “unlisted.”

Another character in the book regularly makes “cauliflower cheese,” and to confirm that dish exists here’s a recipe. It even has a Wikipedia entry. In contrast, the “big, sloppy bowl of potato cheese” that same character sets out in chapter 8 has no equivalent webpages, indicating that she’s just thrown stuff together, and the result doesn’t even necessarily pass muster as rural English cuisine. I wouldn’t have gotten that nuance if I hadn’t tried looking up both phrases.