Recently, JKR revealed that the American term for "Muggle" is "No-Maj," and it has since become something of an informal practice to use "No-Maj" instead of "Muggle" to refer to American Muggles within articles on this wiki. This raises the question of whether this contradicts our policy of using British spellings and terms (see HPW:Policy) in articles. The policy is pretty clear-cut when it comes to standard English – we use "colour" over "color," "lift" over "elevator," etc. – but should it also be applied to in-universe terminology? Should we use "Muggle" to refer to all non-magic people, regardless of nationality, because this is the British term in-universe? Or should we use "Muggle" to refer to U.K./European non-magic people, and "No-Maj" to refer to North American ones, since this is the in-universe practice and it is more in keeping with our in-universe point of view? ★ Starstuff (Owl me!) 20:33, March 22, 2016 (UTC)
- That´s a deficult question. I´ve read the "History of Magic in North America" by J K Rowling, and Pottermore uses both terms, but the term "No-Maj" is used far more often.
- I´d be in favour of keeping the American non-magical community as No-Maj on the wiki.
- We could add something like this to our policy.
- "When a non-british term is commonly used in-.universe, it can be used in articles in certain situations."
- And then we could use the No-Maj example.--Rodolphus (talk) 06:32, March 28, 2016 (UTC)
- I disagree with using the term No-Maj for non-magical humans regardless of their nationality. The term "No-Maj" can and should be described in the articles it belongs to, such as the Muggle article.
- However, I do not think it should be used to describe North American non-magical people because it implies they're a different kind of non-magical human beings. Muggle or No-Maj, it's just different names for the same thing, so articles should go for the british term. If a North American wizard is wearing a green cloak, we wouldn't say "The color of the cloak is green", rather "the colour of the cloak is green", right? Regardless of how the wizard himself would spell/call that word, the articles are written in British English, and this should not be an exception. I repeat, I am not saying we should ignore the term No-Maj, but that doesn't mean we should apply it everywhere it can be. Killian Jones 18:08, March 28, 2016 (UTC)
- J.K. Rowling's word is law. If she says that is the term for North American wizards in the Potter universe, then that is the term we use on the wiki: we don't simply merge her terminology with something else for "convenience's sake" or "because it could be considered an insult".
- If we're going to ignore Rowling's word on this topic, then what's to say we can't just ignore everything else she says and add in what we feel like writing? --Sajuuk 18:29, March 28, 2016 (UTC)
- I don't say her word should be ignored, at all. I don't know if I was clear enough, but I was suggesting we describe the north american terminology in the articles it has to be described, and that's it. No-Maj is the american term for muggles, and surely american wizards in-universe will think of muggles as No-Maj. But articles written in british english should not use american terminology in their texts, unless it is to inform about the term itself, in my opinion.
- Just think of it this way. No-Maj is an in-universe term, we can agree about that. So is Mudblood. So, if you are reading Draco Malfoy's article, would you expect to read something like "Hermione, a disgusting mudblood classmate of Draco's, said that..." Or, when you are reading Madame Maxime's article, would it be acceptable to write "In 1997, Madame Maxime was among those paying respects at Dumbly-dorr's funeral.", because that is the way Maxime refers to Dumbledore? Or why not, write all the Beuxbatons related articles in French?
- What I mean is, the articles are written from a British English point of view, regardless of whether they adress aspects of the Wizarding World relating to other countries or cultures. Anyway, that is just my opinion about it. Killian Jones 18:45, March 28, 2016 (UTC)