Captain Oblivious

Well, I suppose you could consider this to be a spoiler, but only if the fact that Hermione uses an oath/swears somehow gives away too much of the plot. Right, didn't think so.

And the question is: How many of my fellow Americans knew how naughty Hermione was being when she swore on "Merlin's pants?"

If you have no idea what I mean, Wikipedia is your friend (as is Google, but in this case one link beats millions).

Oddly, the fact that they left this sort of thing in and didn't edit it out for a special American edition is encouraging. The first couple of Harry Potter books had American editions that were edited to remove terms Americans weren't expected to understand. The one I remember is that someone decided they needed to say "boots" instead of "Wellies" because clearly the Yanks would never figure that one out.

Anyway, I liked the choice of terms for an oath, but as soon as I read it I wondered how many people in my country would know what Hermione was referring to. Yes, I realize that is yet more evidence of how strange I am...