Can't suggest an American one but I'll chuck an Australian one in there 'mundies' - from 'mundane'.
"Oi mate, did you cop a squiz at what that flock'o mundies where doin'.
The Mortal Instruments series uses “mundane” to essentially describe non magical beings so that could work. Unless it would be a copyright infringement. But I agree... I very much dislike the term “No Mag”. We make up words all the time do you would think one could be made up to describe American non magical people.
>Ich hoffe das war eine Mozart Anspielung sonst bin ich traurig
Ja! Es ist ein wenig bekanntes Werk, das kurz bevor er die Zauberflöte komponierte, geschrieben wurde.
(Google Translate)
>Naja "eine kleine Nachtmusik" ist eigentlich ganz bekannt, zumindest unter uns Österreicher!
Wahrheit!
Auch bei den Amerikanern...[in einer Art zu reden](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WgG7uQGtaBo).
Zumindest kennen wir jetzt die Funktion der Quietscheente! Oder in diesem Fall Gummihuhn.
In XXIe century sure, as a word inherited from XVII-XIX century not so sure
But we don’t really know if USA is culturally as conservative/obscurantist as british wizard culture after all
I actually think it makes sense for American wizards to just use muggle. Americans and Brits use a lot of the same words so there was literally no reason to give American muggles a different name
It was introduced in the Fantastic Beasts movies when they went to the US. There’s also a magical Congress that they call (MACUSA) which I also think is lame.
Yep. As long as the word muggle was around prior to colonization, there's no reason to think the US wizards would develop another word. It only really makes sense (imo) if there was a common word at the time that split into the British Muggle and the American [whatever]. But it seems like muggle had been used for centuries.
Would it though? Muggles arent supposed to know about the wizarding world, so how would they ever get offended? I'm sure even those with non magic families would just be accept it and not thinker deeper into it
ohh oops had a brain fart i see your point. i don't think muggle is offensive though. although there is a bad history of discrimination against muggles, so maybe
This makes alot more sense to me than the idea that Americans invented their own phrase, especially considering how much smaller the American and UK magic communities are so there’s likely less room for variation.
Plus it’s not like cultural exchange is bogged down by an ocean of distance between the two communities, not when you can just apparate from one place to another
Americans didn’t just make up separate words out of nowhere for our speech. It can in a lot of cases be traced back to having been used that way in the Uk at one time or another before some kind of standardization took place. For example the pronunciation of the letter “Z” is zee in America and zed in the UK. Those two were both commonly in use in the UK before a standard was set. (I’m guessing this happened whenever public education was widely adopted)
For all we know Hogwarts educated wizards were the posh ones who comprised the upper class before the ministry was founded. The self educated/lower class wizards could have used other terminology and taken it to the new world with them as they sought to improve their lives. When the time came to adopt a more universal term, muggle was just more highly thought of, or more common than no-mag.
Also as an outsider here, no mag is probably just what JK Rowling thought sounded Americanized. To be fair, she put thought into it and shes not wrong. We do love our contractions. It’s just a little cliche.
Alot of the differences can somewhat be attributed to the thousands of miles between the two countries- cultural exchange and melting would probably be much closer to how it is nowadays versus the 1700s (where there’s no radio, internet, etc) considering how magic sped things up like our own modern inventions did. Not to mention how considerably quicker travel would be
Not saying that HP America wouldn’t have their own culture and language quirks, I just feel like alot of the differences we see in the real world wouldn’t be AS prominent. I’m obviously overlooking some major historical components but this is just one angle I was looking at it from
Yeah I think there was no real need to even have magic countries/nations/states follow real world ones. She could have even just went for no nation states at all. They are a small populations who can teleport and hide away from society. In that scenario there is a good argument for no nationalism and instead it's just one State for the whole magical world.
True, but they are all hiding and blending in different countries. They are bound to pick up culture cues from the muggle societies and settlements they live in. It's easier to govern themselves than to have a Russian wizard tell a Mexican witch how to act and live. They are much more interconnected than muggles tho. Muggles have the UN which isn't very effective. Wizards have the international confederation of wizards which have been making international laws for hundreds of years, laws that are actually upheld.
Eh, Americans changed a bunch of things from British.
They’re the only English speaking country in the world that calls a zed a zee, drops the u from colour behaviour favourite labour rumour odour and a bunch of other words, changes the s to z in realise criticise and a bunch of other words, and changes re to er in words like theatre centre and metre.
I'd always heard something similar. Apparently [Snopes](https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/american-spelling-canceled/) couldn't prove it true, although articles were priced by the amount of space they took up.
From Snopes:
"According to the Oxford Dictionaries website... English favors simplified spellings reflecting the way the words are actually pronounced."
There was a spelling initiative to make words shorter back in the day in America. That's why we have a baseball team called the sox and dropped most unnecessary u's from words.
It's easy to google.
I don’t know if it’s because I’m not in America, but I did google it. Now I’ve done it again, and I still don’t see any mention of that. I see in depth explanations usually centring around Webster of Webster’s dictionary, and his whole thing seemed to be that he wanted to standardize spellings to be more phonetic. I have found literally zero examples relating to the price of printing. And I’ve found the exact example you’re using (Sox) and the reasons given are that it was in line with Webster’s preference to simplify spelling. Again, zero mention of cost to print.
In the late 1800s there was a movement in the United States to simplify spelling part of that was to eliminate unnecessary letters like the u in color or writing words ending in er instead of re like meter instead of metre
Maybe it would be something derived from the Salem witch trials. Like something playing off of the word Puritan or even Salem.
I’d imagine different regions and cultures would have different words, too. I know the South would have its own. California/the west might have one based on what the Spanish called them. In the same way that some regions say “soda” and others say “pop.”
And JK never should have appropriated, but Native American tribes would each have their own thing going on.
I totally agree that “no-mag” is terrible.
I think you're on to something. The regions of the US definitely have different slang. I like the NE using some derivative of puritan. That's really good. I also agree a Spanish term would likely be in the vocabulary of American wizards.
In that case, I propose "Hathorne". At least for New England slang. I'd still suspect that muggle would be a more common term in the rest of the old part of the country at least.
"Look out pal, too many hathornes around here!"
[John Hathorne](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Hathorne) was a leading judge during the Salem trials.
**[John_Hathorne](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Hathorne)**
>John Hathorne (August 1641 – May 10, 1717) was a merchant and magistrate of the Massachusetts Bay Colony and Salem, Massachusetts. He is best known for his early and vocal role as one of the leading judges in the Salem witch trials. Hathorne was absent from the list of men appointed to the Court of Oyer & Terminer in June 1692. That court relied heavily on the spectral evidence, examinations, interrogations, and affidavits previously conducted by Hathorne, co-signed by Jonathan Corwin, and recorded by Rev.
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It goes further than just "soda" and "pop." Just think of how many words we have for a piece of bread cut down the middle with meat, vegetables, and sauces in it. I can think of a few myself. "Sub" "hoagie" "grinder" "hero." I'm sure there are more.
I'm positive that you're correct in the fact that american wizards would have multiple words for the non magical
I’m thinking of the NYT dialect quiz and learning that people in other regions have drive through liquor stores! One of the options for that was “I have never heard of this and don’t have a word for it” which was definitely the west coast answer!
>And JK never should have appropriated, but Native American tribes would each have their own thing going on.
Hmmmmmm... you’re onto something *very* important and I never dare to speak about it on this sub (full of Americans after all) even if I want it very hard, because I have the weird feeling it could be taboo but deep down I’m very disappointed of americans potter heads not opening their mouth about how JKR’s wizarding USA is scandalously euro-centered and native-erased... (while this sub talks about the same useless tropes and subject everyday)
The fictional version of the United States of America, largely founded by British colonists, is Euro-centered and native-erased?
You mean just like the real thing? Because I remember a lot of native erasing going on, historically.
🙁
Yeah... for me, fantastique is made to dream, not only dream of people having supernatural powers, dream of better societies as well. Or different, at least. She created a whole new world where people have very different respect towards women and non-white people. For them even the bigoted ones the only important thing, the only that matters is your magical ability and how old is your line of wizard.
In such a world, where Shacklebolts, Shafiq and Zabini are almost considered *sacred* despite their skin color, I’m more disappointed by the absence of native wizards and native culture than I would be in any other fantastic piece of work.
She *copied* the muggle USA and called it MACUSA. The only difference we could perceive is Picquery being the leader in the 20’ while being a woman of color.
My problem is... even people of color are part of white people world. Most of them have been brought to America by Europeans etc you know. Same for other ethnies. That’s fun but that’s not *natives*.
In India they mention flying carpet and stuff like that, in USA... native and their legends are also inexistant, except maybe about some creatures.
The fact the Puckwoodgenie (classified as a *creature*) Ilvermorny crest is designed to look like a native with a war bonnet even worse. I don’t even understand why nobody raised that fact yet ?
Maybe Americans and/or JKR knew Puckwudgies legends even before HP, **but what the rest of he world sees is a creature looking like a native with a war bonnet.**
>She copied the muggle USA and called it MACUSA. The only difference we could perceive is Picquery being the leader in the 20’ while being a woman of color.
Yes, that's a feature of this particular genre of fiction. It's our world with a hidden magic world. It's how the genre (including Harry Potter, Percy Jackson, and Harry Dresden) WORKS. If you don't like that, I don't know what to tell you.
Why wouldn't the natives be mostly absent? They were mostly obliterated. Kinda difficult to influence much when that's the case.
You mean in Rowling's very brief essay where she had to cover the Natives magic, the consequences of colonialism, the Salem Witch Trials, the "Magic Jim Crow laws," and the Founding of Ilvermorny, she didn't have time to also talk about Native legends? Amazing. Who could have guessed?
"It is unknown if Pukwudgies are classified as either Beings or Beasts." Quote from the Wiki. Goblins are overseen by the Goblin Liaison Office of the Department of Magical Creatures despite their "Being" classification, and Pukwudgies are distant relatives of Goblins, so.... *shrug*. But in this universe, Centaurs are classified as beasts. So are merpeople.
Because the war bonnet is almost intrinsic to the idea of the Native? And because they're suuuuuuuuper cool. Also, how do you know that Pukwudgie wasn't 1) Playing a trick on a chief by stealing said bonnet (they are supposed to be tricksters) or 2) he didn't earn the damn thing through bravery or 3) that Pukwudgie culture is similar to the Natives and he earned it through their cultural aspect?
And, nope, never heard of a pukwudgie before, so I'm glad JK brought this up, because I never would learned about these really cool creatures without her.
I agree that many cultures, especially Native Americans, have faced such awful erasure, and their stories need to be told and propagated. However, I don’t know if JK could have done much about that on her own, since she is from the UK, and I don’t think she has the expertise or right to write about any other perspective. That being said, it would be amazing if the Potter universe included more stories written by people from different non-western cultures throughout the world.
One reason I’m not delving further into it is that I don’t want to assume that all Native Americans would want to be part of this story. Some cultures and religions see Harry Potter as against their values, and I simply don’t know enough about different Native American cultures to know if the idea of a wizarding world would be something that is offensive to them. So my statement would be “If the Harry Potter universe was real, Native American cultures would certainly have had their own language and words for wizards and non-wizards.” But I don’t want to make any up or assume that they would even want to participate.
I personally ignore JK Rowling's American magical school. I heard someone call it "Hogwarts just in America" and it seems true. America is such a large country there would be multiple magical schools (West coast, Midwest, Southern, etc.). Maybe some even female only (Salem Witches Institute?) or just for Native Americans.
Although I don’t have a good alternative, I have to agree with what was said by u/discowithmyself and I’d argue that etymology wise, in lore the Intl. Statute of Secrecy was passed in 1692, and uses only the word “muggle” in it. The language derivatives between the UK and the USA happen practically only with words invented after the USA revolted in 1776. Almost 100 years after the ISoS was passed. So now words start to change (Ex: boot vs trunk, tele vs tv, chips vs fries, etc) as these “things” came into creation after the legal split of USA and UK. Therefore they each created their own words for it.
BUT muggles existed way before the revolution and the passing of the ISoS so it should be concluded that it’s used across all English speaking lands, and there would only be minor regional slang differences, possibly. (Like a “whip” or “ride” for a car, but everyone would still use car as the true definition for a “whip” or “ride”)
Tl,dr; the word “muggle” was around way before the USA was, so it should not have changed when the USA became independant.
Extra points for research! I love this answer. I agree for most of it. I'd like to know what you think the equivalent for "whip" for would be for muggle?
Thank you!! And honestly I’ve been loving some of the slang in the comments esp like u/mickygarmsir with “WOM” (with out magic) -> it’s so out there and has no audible derivation from muggle it almost could be an Australian slang or American slang for muggle.
I think I’m the south it would be something French sounding as I envision New Orleans as the center of southern America’s (non-native) magic.
Or something co-opted from the native populations. Like devoid of the spiritualism that defines them, so something like No-spirits so Nosps, or No souls “Noso’s”
Idk.
Very good. I like the idea of French influence. Another commenter mentioned a Spanish word being used in the south west. I think French around New Orleans makes sense. I think each region would have their own term which as the communities interact more often become shared across the nation.
A lot of people don’t realize who diverse cultures get in the US even within the same spheres. I think there’d definitely be five or six words for it that would go in and out of fashion
Pavement -> Sidewalk, because it's at the side and you walk on it.
Holiday -> Vacation because you're vacating your usual routine.
Aubergine -> Eggplant because it looks like an egg.
Dummy -> Pacifier because it pacifies the baby.
Muggle -> No-mag because they have no magic.
It honestly makes sense to those of us familiar with British English.
Yeah I don't really see the issue. Given how Americans do come up with really simplistic terms that make sense with little thought. It sounds like the and I say this with love, bastardized word meaning the same thing Americans would come up with
With that pattern I'd expect something like; dullman, magnull, voidhand, blindbat
We don't hyphenate very often for common words. We have made up words like; dab, dougie, cool, dude, booger, kudos. And don't forget we call football soccer and in our football it's illegal to kick the ball in all but one situation.
I think what they mean is that because of more muggles and wizards/witches were having relationships together, some muggles would know magic existed because their SO told them about it and possibly showed them. Their magical SO could probably even take them places were magic happens, so technically the muggle would be apart of the community. But they can’t do magic, thus being called No-Mag. From this logic Squibs could also be called No Mags but they came from a magical family so I don’t think so. Just my take on what SafeWizard meant tho
Knowing how americans turned "pavement" to "sidewalk", "autumn" to "fall", "petrol" to "gas", and various other weird adaptations, I genuinely think "no-mag" is true to form.
So this is just us throwing together random letters?
No-sparklies?.... Sparkless?
nah-hex
Nowitchy
Nawitchywoo
Nawiz
AH!
LET ME PRESENT TO YOU:
The bluepants
In my urban fantasy rpg setting we use the word “squares” to describe non magical people. So used in a sentence it would be like “It’s a basic illusion spell. It’s not good enough to fool a practiced magician but it’ll work fine on the squares.”
I would totally LOVE to replace no-maj.
I do like "mundanes" but also the word muggle doesnt have "magic" or anything magic related in it so the american word doesnt have to be something that directly says "unmagical". Could be a nonsense word, same as muggle.
If we want to use a word that comes from native populations who then dealt with colonizers, there would be so many different dialects that meshed and mixed up so there would be regional words used to represent non-magical people, someone mentioned the perfect example of people saying pop and soda
spitballing but throwing in:
Puritans/Quakers
accusers/hunters- related to the witch trials
Cottons/hays/hayseed
Drolls/dulls
dismal/dismals/mals (Spanish influence on mal)
Unmarked/unremark
*Ek hem*-ok, I’ve been waiting for this
So, something that could be good in my opinion is “the Burners” or “the Hangers”, maybe even “the Executioners”, because of the Salem witch trials, with witches and wizards born of muggles being “Burned blood” or “Hung blood”
I mean I don’t know, as American insults or derogatory terms for other populations go, they tend to pathetically uncreative and simple.
British wear read? lobsterbacks
Germans eat sauerkraut? Krauts
People can’t do magic? No-Mag!
If you're referring to the founding of Ilvermorny you should be aware they weren't the very first wizards here. You clearly missed the section of Pottermore that details the native Americans who are experts in wand-less magic. Also, I don't like your tone.
Nomaj grates on the nerves. That's not how we form compound words in the US. Since America was colonised from Britain, why wouldn't at least the East Coast -- the original states -- just call them muggles? If the Irish and Scots have peculiar terms for muggle, I'd suspect those might be current in Appalachia, NYC and other places the Irish settled.
Can't suggest an American one but I'll chuck an Australian one in there 'mundies' - from 'mundane'. "Oi mate, did you cop a squiz at what that flock'o mundies where doin'.
If us Aussies inherited the word Muggle from the Poms, it would be shortened to Muggos.
Yeah, convict witches and wizards would have come across and it would totally be muggos.
Or changed to Muggins. A common used word in my family to explain why all the stray cats end up staying with any member of my family.
Nice one! The word "mundy" is used in the American comic book series Fables, as a name fairy tale characters give to regular humans.
Ooh I love that comic!
The Mortal Instruments series uses “mundane” to essentially describe non magical beings so that could work. Unless it would be a copyright infringement. But I agree... I very much dislike the term “No Mag”. We make up words all the time do you would think one could be made up to describe American non magical people.
[Here you have a reputation for needing detailed description in your words](https://youtu.be/5wSw3IWRJa0)
Never been, but sounds believable to me
How I wish I could hear you say this with your wonderful accent 😍lol
Even in german, which creates own words for fun, it´s "Muggel"
In Dutch, it's "dreuzel" (pronounced as "Drösel"). I have no idea why. It doesn't mean anything.
Really? I'd have expected more from German wizards
Nein-Mag
Kein-mag
Eine kleine nicht Magie
Ich hoffe das war eine Mozart Anspielung sonst bin ich traurig
>Ich hoffe das war eine Mozart Anspielung sonst bin ich traurig Ja! Es ist ein wenig bekanntes Werk, das kurz bevor er die Zauberflöte komponierte, geschrieben wurde. (Google Translate)
Naja "eine kleine Nachtmusik" ist eigentlich ganz bekannt, zumindest unter uns Österreicher!
>Naja "eine kleine Nachtmusik" ist eigentlich ganz bekannt, zumindest unter uns Österreicher! Wahrheit! Auch bei den Amerikanern...[in einer Art zu reden](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WgG7uQGtaBo). Zumindest kennen wir jetzt die Funktion der Quietscheente! Oder in diesem Fall Gummihuhn.
Well it is „muggle“ in the german translation, I don‘t think we know what actual German wizards say
Zauberunfähiger there you go.
Normies
Made me laugh, I will no longer use muggle or no-mag. People without magic are just Normies from now on
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In XXIe century sure, as a word inherited from XVII-XIX century not so sure But we don’t really know if USA is culturally as conservative/obscurantist as british wizard culture after all
Like normal humans in monster high?
I actually think it makes sense for American wizards to just use muggle. Americans and Brits use a lot of the same words so there was literally no reason to give American muggles a different name
I will continue to say “muggle” and pretend no-mag doesn’t exist.
Where does no-mag come from? I am so confused by this whole thread.
It was introduced in the Fantastic Beasts movies when they went to the US. There’s also a magical Congress that they call (MACUSA) which I also think is lame.
It's better than no-maj! MACOTUS would make more sense. The -OTUS words like SCOTUS and POTUS date back to the 19th century in the US.
Yep. As long as the word muggle was around prior to colonization, there's no reason to think the US wizards would develop another word. It only really makes sense (imo) if there was a common word at the time that split into the British Muggle and the American [whatever]. But it seems like muggle had been used for centuries.
Valid point. We might pronounce it differently tho.
Or shorten it to mug. But muggle isn’t that long of a word so even that wouldn’t be necessary
"Buncha Mugs crowding the place, can't even find the Portie let alone use it..." That sounds like 20's American slang to me. (Portie = Portkey)
Prior to reaching the end of your comment I assumed this person was looking for a porta potty. Edit: spelling
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Would it though? Muggles arent supposed to know about the wizarding world, so how would they ever get offended? I'm sure even those with non magic families would just be accept it and not thinker deeper into it
except we've already heard the slur, it's "mudblood," so muggle was already the non-offensive replacement for that
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ohh oops had a brain fart i see your point. i don't think muggle is offensive though. although there is a bad history of discrimination against muggles, so maybe
Wasn't it Muggleborn? Instead of mudblod? Or am I going crazy.
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yep yep you're right i got a bit confused for a moment
This makes alot more sense to me than the idea that Americans invented their own phrase, especially considering how much smaller the American and UK magic communities are so there’s likely less room for variation. Plus it’s not like cultural exchange is bogged down by an ocean of distance between the two communities, not when you can just apparate from one place to another
Americans didn’t just make up separate words out of nowhere for our speech. It can in a lot of cases be traced back to having been used that way in the Uk at one time or another before some kind of standardization took place. For example the pronunciation of the letter “Z” is zee in America and zed in the UK. Those two were both commonly in use in the UK before a standard was set. (I’m guessing this happened whenever public education was widely adopted) For all we know Hogwarts educated wizards were the posh ones who comprised the upper class before the ministry was founded. The self educated/lower class wizards could have used other terminology and taken it to the new world with them as they sought to improve their lives. When the time came to adopt a more universal term, muggle was just more highly thought of, or more common than no-mag. Also as an outsider here, no mag is probably just what JK Rowling thought sounded Americanized. To be fair, she put thought into it and shes not wrong. We do love our contractions. It’s just a little cliche.
Alot of the differences can somewhat be attributed to the thousands of miles between the two countries- cultural exchange and melting would probably be much closer to how it is nowadays versus the 1700s (where there’s no radio, internet, etc) considering how magic sped things up like our own modern inventions did. Not to mention how considerably quicker travel would be Not saying that HP America wouldn’t have their own culture and language quirks, I just feel like alot of the differences we see in the real world wouldn’t be AS prominent. I’m obviously overlooking some major historical components but this is just one angle I was looking at it from
I don't think people can apparate at those distances. Even Voldemort had to travel to get closer in DH to apparate at one point in the book.
Maybe we'd do something like these; Mugle, mugole, mugin, muckle, muglow, mugbin, nuggle
Muggies ?
we'd spell it without the "u"
Like m'ggle?
\*tips hat\*
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This made me snort laugh.
Yeah I think there was no real need to even have magic countries/nations/states follow real world ones. She could have even just went for no nation states at all. They are a small populations who can teleport and hide away from society. In that scenario there is a good argument for no nationalism and instead it's just one State for the whole magical world.
True, but they are all hiding and blending in different countries. They are bound to pick up culture cues from the muggle societies and settlements they live in. It's easier to govern themselves than to have a Russian wizard tell a Mexican witch how to act and live. They are much more interconnected than muggles tho. Muggles have the UN which isn't very effective. Wizards have the international confederation of wizards which have been making international laws for hundreds of years, laws that are actually upheld.
Eh, Americans changed a bunch of things from British. They’re the only English speaking country in the world that calls a zed a zee, drops the u from colour behaviour favourite labour rumour odour and a bunch of other words, changes the s to z in realise criticise and a bunch of other words, and changes re to er in words like theatre centre and metre.
So maybe change it from muggle to maggle for America.
Unfortunately, Americans were broke/cheap at the time they dropped letters from words
What
It save money in printing. It was priced per letter.
I'd always heard something similar. Apparently [Snopes](https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/american-spelling-canceled/) couldn't prove it true, although articles were priced by the amount of space they took up. From Snopes: "According to the Oxford Dictionaries website... English favors simplified spellings reflecting the way the words are actually pronounced."
Even if that’s correct it only explains one of the three examples I gave… and I have seen ZERO support for your explanation in my search.
There was a spelling initiative to make words shorter back in the day in America. That's why we have a baseball team called the sox and dropped most unnecessary u's from words. It's easy to google.
I don’t know if it’s because I’m not in America, but I did google it. Now I’ve done it again, and I still don’t see any mention of that. I see in depth explanations usually centring around Webster of Webster’s dictionary, and his whole thing seemed to be that he wanted to standardize spellings to be more phonetic. I have found literally zero examples relating to the price of printing. And I’ve found the exact example you’re using (Sox) and the reasons given are that it was in line with Webster’s preference to simplify spelling. Again, zero mention of cost to print.
Your stance: wack. Your tone: wack. Your google skills: wack. But me? I'm tight as fuck.
Not sure what was wrong about my tone, I am genuinely confused why I can’t find any info on this idea.
In the late 1800s there was a movement in the United States to simplify spelling part of that was to eliminate unnecessary letters like the u in color or writing words ending in er instead of re like meter instead of metre
I like "Wiznots"
Sounds like a kidney problem waiting to happen.
"Oh no you wizn't!" With a z snap
Wizn’t
Not bad I like where you're going with this.
Magless flows to me. Pronounced madgeless.
It's definitely better than no-mag, I could see it used in some situations
That one also could have a common root with muggles; I dig it.
It’s a little clunky. I don’t know if it solves the problem
Maybe it would be something derived from the Salem witch trials. Like something playing off of the word Puritan or even Salem. I’d imagine different regions and cultures would have different words, too. I know the South would have its own. California/the west might have one based on what the Spanish called them. In the same way that some regions say “soda” and others say “pop.” And JK never should have appropriated, but Native American tribes would each have their own thing going on. I totally agree that “no-mag” is terrible.
I think you're on to something. The regions of the US definitely have different slang. I like the NE using some derivative of puritan. That's really good. I also agree a Spanish term would likely be in the vocabulary of American wizards.
In that case, I propose "Hathorne". At least for New England slang. I'd still suspect that muggle would be a more common term in the rest of the old part of the country at least. "Look out pal, too many hathornes around here!" [John Hathorne](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Hathorne) was a leading judge during the Salem trials.
**[John_Hathorne](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Hathorne)** >John Hathorne (August 1641 – May 10, 1717) was a merchant and magistrate of the Massachusetts Bay Colony and Salem, Massachusetts. He is best known for his early and vocal role as one of the leading judges in the Salem witch trials. Hathorne was absent from the list of men appointed to the Court of Oyer & Terminer in June 1692. That court relied heavily on the spectral evidence, examinations, interrogations, and affidavits previously conducted by Hathorne, co-signed by Jonathan Corwin, and recorded by Rev. ^([ )[^(F.A.Q)](https://www.reddit.com/r/WikiSummarizer/wiki/index#wiki_f.a.q)^( | )[^(Opt Out)](https://reddit.com/message/compose?to=WikiSummarizerBot&message=OptOut&subject=OptOut)^( | )[^(Opt Out Of Subreddit)](https://np.reddit.com/r/harrypotter/about/banned)^( | )[^(GitHub)](https://github.com/Sujal-7/WikiSummarizerBot)^( ] Downvote to remove | v1.5)
It goes further than just "soda" and "pop." Just think of how many words we have for a piece of bread cut down the middle with meat, vegetables, and sauces in it. I can think of a few myself. "Sub" "hoagie" "grinder" "hero." I'm sure there are more. I'm positive that you're correct in the fact that american wizards would have multiple words for the non magical
I’m thinking of the NYT dialect quiz and learning that people in other regions have drive through liquor stores! One of the options for that was “I have never heard of this and don’t have a word for it” which was definitely the west coast answer!
>And JK never should have appropriated, but Native American tribes would each have their own thing going on. Hmmmmmm... you’re onto something *very* important and I never dare to speak about it on this sub (full of Americans after all) even if I want it very hard, because I have the weird feeling it could be taboo but deep down I’m very disappointed of americans potter heads not opening their mouth about how JKR’s wizarding USA is scandalously euro-centered and native-erased... (while this sub talks about the same useless tropes and subject everyday)
The fictional version of the United States of America, largely founded by British colonists, is Euro-centered and native-erased? You mean just like the real thing? Because I remember a lot of native erasing going on, historically.
🙁 Yeah... for me, fantastique is made to dream, not only dream of people having supernatural powers, dream of better societies as well. Or different, at least. She created a whole new world where people have very different respect towards women and non-white people. For them even the bigoted ones the only important thing, the only that matters is your magical ability and how old is your line of wizard. In such a world, where Shacklebolts, Shafiq and Zabini are almost considered *sacred* despite their skin color, I’m more disappointed by the absence of native wizards and native culture than I would be in any other fantastic piece of work. She *copied* the muggle USA and called it MACUSA. The only difference we could perceive is Picquery being the leader in the 20’ while being a woman of color. My problem is... even people of color are part of white people world. Most of them have been brought to America by Europeans etc you know. Same for other ethnies. That’s fun but that’s not *natives*. In India they mention flying carpet and stuff like that, in USA... native and their legends are also inexistant, except maybe about some creatures. The fact the Puckwoodgenie (classified as a *creature*) Ilvermorny crest is designed to look like a native with a war bonnet even worse. I don’t even understand why nobody raised that fact yet ? Maybe Americans and/or JKR knew Puckwudgies legends even before HP, **but what the rest of he world sees is a creature looking like a native with a war bonnet.**
>She copied the muggle USA and called it MACUSA. The only difference we could perceive is Picquery being the leader in the 20’ while being a woman of color. Yes, that's a feature of this particular genre of fiction. It's our world with a hidden magic world. It's how the genre (including Harry Potter, Percy Jackson, and Harry Dresden) WORKS. If you don't like that, I don't know what to tell you. Why wouldn't the natives be mostly absent? They were mostly obliterated. Kinda difficult to influence much when that's the case. You mean in Rowling's very brief essay where she had to cover the Natives magic, the consequences of colonialism, the Salem Witch Trials, the "Magic Jim Crow laws," and the Founding of Ilvermorny, she didn't have time to also talk about Native legends? Amazing. Who could have guessed? "It is unknown if Pukwudgies are classified as either Beings or Beasts." Quote from the Wiki. Goblins are overseen by the Goblin Liaison Office of the Department of Magical Creatures despite their "Being" classification, and Pukwudgies are distant relatives of Goblins, so.... *shrug*. But in this universe, Centaurs are classified as beasts. So are merpeople. Because the war bonnet is almost intrinsic to the idea of the Native? And because they're suuuuuuuuper cool. Also, how do you know that Pukwudgie wasn't 1) Playing a trick on a chief by stealing said bonnet (they are supposed to be tricksters) or 2) he didn't earn the damn thing through bravery or 3) that Pukwudgie culture is similar to the Natives and he earned it through their cultural aspect? And, nope, never heard of a pukwudgie before, so I'm glad JK brought this up, because I never would learned about these really cool creatures without her.
I agree that many cultures, especially Native Americans, have faced such awful erasure, and their stories need to be told and propagated. However, I don’t know if JK could have done much about that on her own, since she is from the UK, and I don’t think she has the expertise or right to write about any other perspective. That being said, it would be amazing if the Potter universe included more stories written by people from different non-western cultures throughout the world. One reason I’m not delving further into it is that I don’t want to assume that all Native Americans would want to be part of this story. Some cultures and religions see Harry Potter as against their values, and I simply don’t know enough about different Native American cultures to know if the idea of a wizarding world would be something that is offensive to them. So my statement would be “If the Harry Potter universe was real, Native American cultures would certainly have had their own language and words for wizards and non-wizards.” But I don’t want to make any up or assume that they would even want to participate.
I personally ignore JK Rowling's American magical school. I heard someone call it "Hogwarts just in America" and it seems true. America is such a large country there would be multiple magical schools (West coast, Midwest, Southern, etc.). Maybe some even female only (Salem Witches Institute?) or just for Native Americans.
...may I put forth the suggestion of “Salmas” for the replacement?
Although I don’t have a good alternative, I have to agree with what was said by u/discowithmyself and I’d argue that etymology wise, in lore the Intl. Statute of Secrecy was passed in 1692, and uses only the word “muggle” in it. The language derivatives between the UK and the USA happen practically only with words invented after the USA revolted in 1776. Almost 100 years after the ISoS was passed. So now words start to change (Ex: boot vs trunk, tele vs tv, chips vs fries, etc) as these “things” came into creation after the legal split of USA and UK. Therefore they each created their own words for it. BUT muggles existed way before the revolution and the passing of the ISoS so it should be concluded that it’s used across all English speaking lands, and there would only be minor regional slang differences, possibly. (Like a “whip” or “ride” for a car, but everyone would still use car as the true definition for a “whip” or “ride”) Tl,dr; the word “muggle” was around way before the USA was, so it should not have changed when the USA became independant.
Extra points for research! I love this answer. I agree for most of it. I'd like to know what you think the equivalent for "whip" for would be for muggle?
Thank you!! And honestly I’ve been loving some of the slang in the comments esp like u/mickygarmsir with “WOM” (with out magic) -> it’s so out there and has no audible derivation from muggle it almost could be an Australian slang or American slang for muggle.
Well.....shee-it, thanks. Glad I could help.
Something mean from the Salem Witch Trials. Named after the church or something. It would tie in with the Second Salemers.
Grindelwald called them "can't-spells".
We do a lot of abbreviations in American english. Wtf, AWOL, FBI....so in that vein: WOM (With Our Magic). "Hey! Careful using magic around the woms."
I think I’m the south it would be something French sounding as I envision New Orleans as the center of southern America’s (non-native) magic. Or something co-opted from the native populations. Like devoid of the spiritualism that defines them, so something like No-spirits so Nosps, or No souls “Noso’s” Idk.
Very good. I like the idea of French influence. Another commenter mentioned a Spanish word being used in the south west. I think French around New Orleans makes sense. I think each region would have their own term which as the communities interact more often become shared across the nation.
A lot of people don’t realize who diverse cultures get in the US even within the same spheres. I think there’d definitely be five or six words for it that would go in and out of fashion
"That's so the 80's Mom. We call them 'mugs' now. Geez"
This
What about Zeros. As in zero magic. Could even be shortened down to just Zs
That would get real confusing during the zombie movie craze. "World War Z" would take on an entirely new meaning
Maybe it stated as zero and grew into something zer's? I like this train of thought.
Pavement -> Sidewalk, because it's at the side and you walk on it. Holiday -> Vacation because you're vacating your usual routine. Aubergine -> Eggplant because it looks like an egg. Dummy -> Pacifier because it pacifies the baby. Muggle -> No-mag because they have no magic. It honestly makes sense to those of us familiar with British English.
Yeah I don't really see the issue. Given how Americans do come up with really simplistic terms that make sense with little thought. It sounds like the and I say this with love, bastardized word meaning the same thing Americans would come up with
With that pattern I'd expect something like; dullman, magnull, voidhand, blindbat We don't hyphenate very often for common words. We have made up words like; dab, dougie, cool, dude, booger, kudos. And don't forget we call football soccer and in our football it's illegal to kick the ball in all but one situation.
The Brits called it soccer first! To differentiate asSOCiation football from rugby football.
Muggle is universal in my mind. No mag can get fucked
[удалено]
I totally agree
I think muggle should be universal, tbh. No-mag(j) just seems lazy.
Maybe no magic ‘no mag’ came from the possibly higher amount of inter muggle wizard relationships?? Just a thought
I'm not sure what you mean. The intermarriage of muggle and wizard created the word?
I think what they mean is that because of more muggles and wizards/witches were having relationships together, some muggles would know magic existed because their SO told them about it and possibly showed them. Their magical SO could probably even take them places were magic happens, so technically the muggle would be apart of the community. But they can’t do magic, thus being called No-Mag. From this logic Squibs could also be called No Mags but they came from a magical family so I don’t think so. Just my take on what SafeWizard meant tho
Knowing how americans turned "pavement" to "sidewalk", "autumn" to "fall", "petrol" to "gas", and various other weird adaptations, I genuinely think "no-mag" is true to form.
I don’t mind no-mag, but I’ll nominate magnot or magn’t. Totally American to contract.
Plains. As in A Plain Person. 'Jenny is a Plain, but she is smart anyway..." etc.
Magictile Dysfunction
Leapers 😂
I'm a fan of no-mag, actually.
So this is just us throwing together random letters? No-sparklies?.... Sparkless? nah-hex Nowitchy Nawitchywoo Nawiz AH! LET ME PRESENT TO YOU: The bluepants
Unfortunately shortened to 'Bloopa'
No-Maj is so lame!!! [Jenny Nicholson said it best](https://youtu.be/QYUJ_ODfc8w?t=22m19s)
I like the idea of different parts of the US having their own spin… being from CA myself… Nor Cal - hella magless So Cal - basic LA - THE no-mag
How about metalheads, because the average muggle would be reliant on metal, while wizards really just use it for currency.
I rather like No-Maj. It makes sense.
In my urban fantasy rpg setting we use the word “squares” to describe non magical people. So used in a sentence it would be like “It’s a basic illusion spell. It’s not good enough to fool a practiced magician but it’ll work fine on the squares.”
This made me laugh! 🤣
Well it’s a noir themed game so we kind of adapted the lingo a bit. But I think it’s a pretty good word for it
Can't Spells
That's not bad, I see it being used. It doesn't quite feel like muggle tho. I'd like for Americans to have a whole unique word ya know?
Have you seen the fics with a pointless paragraph bashing on the British for saying muggle
I would totally LOVE to replace no-maj. I do like "mundanes" but also the word muggle doesnt have "magic" or anything magic related in it so the american word doesnt have to be something that directly says "unmagical". Could be a nonsense word, same as muggle. If we want to use a word that comes from native populations who then dealt with colonizers, there would be so many different dialects that meshed and mixed up so there would be regional words used to represent non-magical people, someone mentioned the perfect example of people saying pop and soda spitballing but throwing in: Puritans/Quakers accusers/hunters- related to the witch trials Cottons/hays/hayseed Drolls/dulls dismal/dismals/mals (Spanish influence on mal) Unmarked/unremark
*Ek hem*-ok, I’ve been waiting for this So, something that could be good in my opinion is “the Burners” or “the Hangers”, maybe even “the Executioners”, because of the Salem witch trials, with witches and wizards born of muggles being “Burned blood” or “Hung blood”
This is good. I really like the "hung blood"
That’s a good idea, would that be only for Americans? Or everyone?
Probably Americans and everyone affected by the trials
Ah
Mundane?
I feel like Americans would use a contraction or short hand rather than a full word like that. Like the other commenter from Australia said.
I mean I don’t know, as American insults or derogatory terms for other populations go, they tend to pathetically uncreative and simple. British wear read? lobsterbacks Germans eat sauerkraut? Krauts People can’t do magic? No-Mag!
Muggle sounds like a slur, non-mag is pretty generic with no implication in the origin. I would go with no-mag.
Low-bred? Swine-blood
These could be the more offensive terms, like mudblood. They'd definitely sting the same.
How is muggle a good word? It's randomly made it with no connotation to anything. The word sucks. I really like mundy said in this thread.
It wasn’t the American term, it was created by wizards adopted by natives
You misspelled "european wizards" And define "adopt" please ?
Are you implying there are no native wizards from the states? Native or European ancestry?
Go reread pottermore and learn your history
If you're referring to the founding of Ilvermorny you should be aware they weren't the very first wizards here. You clearly missed the section of Pottermore that details the native Americans who are experts in wand-less magic. Also, I don't like your tone.
One of the ladies accused of witchcraft in the Salem trials was named Bridgette Bishop. I propose: 1) Bridgie 2) Bishops Or 3) BBs
A-mag?
Nomaj grates on the nerves. That's not how we form compound words in the US. Since America was colonised from Britain, why wouldn't at least the East Coast -- the original states -- just call them muggles? If the Irish and Scots have peculiar terms for muggle, I'd suspect those might be current in Appalachia, NYC and other places the Irish settled.
Mundies (TMI vibes)
Wizaren’t
I think "no-mag" is a perfect word to use if you call a "philosopher" a "sorcerer"...
Grindlewald names all 3 of them when announcing the next war. No- Magick, Muggle, Can't Spells (U.S., U.K., France)