Fantastic Beasts And Where To Find Them: Everything We Know So Far

8. No-Maj, Not Muggle

In the Harry Potter books and movies, the popular word for regular people with no magical abilities was "Muggle". First heard early on in the pages of Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, the Oxford English Dictionary actually added it in 2003 with the definition, "A person who is not conversant with a particular activity or skill." Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them is set in New York City in 1926, and the different setting means some new words are going to be added to the Potter lexicon. One of the biggest changes revealed so far is the fact that the movie won't be using the word Muggle. Instead, the American wizards we meet are going to have a very different way of talking about those that aren't part of their magical world: "No-Maj." That's apparently pronounced "no madge," as in "no magic," and the reaction from fans to this news has so far been mixed. Predictably, the majority of complaints hail from Twitter, with one user stating: "I just found out the U.S. equivalent of "Muggle" is "No-Maj" and I want to die." Yes, that's a real thing that someone said! In all honesty, it makes sense that, given the differences between the two countries, there would be different slang words like this, and seeing as J.K. Rowling herself thought it up, why the backlash?