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Originally Posted by Prestidigitweeze
Famously (and perhaps notoriously), Harold Bloom disagreed.
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As I read, I noticed that every time a character went for a walk, the author wrote instead that the character "stretched his legs." I began marking on the back of an envelope every time that phrase was repeated. I stopped only after I had marked the envelope several dozen times.
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I do have to wonder just what book he read, seeing as the phrase is used exactly once in my copy of
Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, searching by "stretch". ("He was in a very good mood until lunch-time, when he thought he’d stretch his legs and walk across the road to buy himself a bun from the baker’s opposite.")
Unless the American editor decided to replace every instance of a mention of a walk by the character "stretching his legs" - and in that case, I'd rather not put the blame on the author! - this strikes me as a truly odd argument to make.
Also, either way - even if this was true, considering he appears to be talking strictly about the first book in the series, this is the sort of thing editors are for. Almost every author has some kind of phrase or construction that is dear to them, and it's difficult to notice it yourself unless pointed out by an editor/beta reader so you know what to keep an eye out for. For a new author with a first book, this is especially important.
There is no way the
first HP book would have made it to the market unedited - JKR was still an unknown, and we're talking about the 1990s, which was still a time where books in general received a little more care than they often do now.