Dame is a term that shifts dramatically in the cross-Atlantic translation between Britain and the United States. Here it’s considered archaic, a throwback to film noir that taught us to associate it with some of cinema’s immortal screen goddesses – Lauren Bacall, Ava Gardner, Barbara Stanwyck, Joan Crawford. Ladies all, but each with a natural flint that, with the proper friction, could set a poor sap’s life on fire. In Britain, Dame is a title equivalent to a knighthood, “properly a name of respect or a title equivalent to lady” in status, instructs Brittanica.com. When we think of Dame Maggie Smith she fits that descriptor since, to the average American, she is Professor Minerva McGonagall from the “Harry Potter” movies or Violet Crawley, the Dowager Countess of Grantham on “Downton Abbey.” By the time those films and hit series came around, Smith had worn her Dame Commander of the British Empire title for many years, having been appointed in 1990. In the days since Smith’s death was announced on Friday, Sept. 27 at the age …