'Harry Potter made me think these things were magic - they're just British'

Daily Mirror

24-07-2025

People have been left in stitches after American readers revealed what confused them in the Harry Potter books
Americans have revealed what confused them about the Harry Potter books, and it turns out lots of readers mistook British references for magical inventions. The "hilarious" mistakes were highlighted in a video shared by TikTok user @kelley_morgan.
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Kelley Morgan told followers: "Here's some things that I used to think were magic but it turns out they're just British. It's pretty common for like a ten or an eleven-year-old American, like, first time they're learning about British culture, is through the Harry Potter books, so a lot of times they'll think certain things that are normal for British people are like magical and like Harry Potter."
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She explained: "The first one is true for me, but also the one that people joke about the most, and it's the one where they're punting students. There's a part in Harry Potter where there's a swamp in the hallways, and then the janitor has to punt students across to get to their classes.
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"In American English a punt is like a drop kick and because the world is like magical anyway we think oh he's kicking students really hard across the swamp, but it turns out in British English punting is like a boat with a stick, like a marsh boat. So it turns out he was just boating them across, he was not kicking them."
Kelley was also confused by British schools. "Another one is school houses. We don't have those at all, and I know not everywhere in England has them but apparently a lot of schools do have different school houses and you actually get sorted into the houses and then you earn points for your house. It's kind of weird to me. It sounds fun, but we don't do that like at all."
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She added: "Along the same lines, prefects, which are like the authority figures within the houses is apparently a real thing. We don't have that at all. I think the closest thing that we might have is a hall monitor, but nobody really likes the hall monitor kids. Also, hall monitor is not a common thing. I don't think we ever had home monitors in my school, but it's just something you see on TV. Next, the American content creator revealed she was confused to read about Christmas crackers.
"They always talk about having Christmas crackers and to us a cracker is a snack. I don't even know what you call it like a cracker, like a chip, not your kind of chip. Then I just assumed fun presents and confetti and stuff fell out of the cracker because they have candy with toys in them in the book.
"So I'm like oh it must fall out of the cracker, but apparently it's a really common thing like in a lot of European countries where you pull both ends of a thing and it pops."
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Finally, she turned her attention to pudding. "I thought they just really liked pudding cause they always say like oh I'm gonna go eat some pudding, like I can't wait for pudding. They always have pudding after dinner cause over there pudding just means dessert and over here it's a very specific dessert."
The video received over 400,000 views and lots of comments from American readers who had a similar experience. Someone commented: "What's most hilarious about the punting is not that it was a different word, but that we all collectively accepted that Filch drop kicked kids across a pond. No questions asked."
A different response read: "I legitimately love pudding and was a little bit disappointed when I found out that it just means any dessert. I thought they were always having my favourite dessert!"
Another comment said: "I had the reverse issue — thinking things that were unique to Harry Potter were actually just normal British things. I thought for way too long that all British kids wrote with quills."