Quote:
Originally Posted by FF2
Just curious - what are the differences [in the Harry Potter books] besides the obvious spellings of things like colour, etc? Oh, and I think I heard Titles are different?
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Besides the changing of spelling, words and idioms were changed if they seemed too British, e.g. from British
jumper to
sweater,
came top of the year to
had the best grades of the first years, etc. The changes were done so that apparently American kids could appreciate the books without becoming boggled down in foreign words. An extensive list of changes can be found at
the HP Lexicon.
Recently this has been in my mind a lot, as I've also been searching high and low for ebooks in British English, with no success. Partly my insistence on BE is due to my desire of matching ebook versions with their pbook copies, but also because the British English editions are the ones with which I grew up, and I appreciate their local flavour. (Damnit Bloomsbury, release a BE edition already, I want searchable, digital copies!
)
Generally speaking, although a lot of ebooks to be found in torrents are of poor quality, there are easily 'retail quality' ebooks if one knows where to look. The torrent scene also has release groups that tend to pride themselves on uploading quality copies. Then less commonly there are ebook copies, usually of books in which no commercial ebooks are available, which are lovingly crafted by fans and quite frankly, look superb. The American English editions of Harry Potter available on various torrents are a good example.