On UK vs. US editions (was Re: MOVIE: length of movie)

[caliburncy at yahoo.com]

No: HPFGUIDX 26176

--- In HPforGrownups at y..., La <daffanee2 at y...> wrote:
> I'd like to know....some of the comments between the
> us version and the brittish versions of the books.  I
> just recently bought the first one in the brittish
> version.  I'm wondering, are the differences in each
> book worth getting and reading both?  

Hi, Laura, welcome to the list!

The Harry Potter Lexicon has put together a list of all the 
differences between the British and U.S. editions of all four 
currently available Harry Potter books (the page numbers refer to the 
hardcover editions).  You can find them on the "Help/About" page (to 
which I provide a link below) under the heading "Language Resources" 
and then "Differences between the UK and US versions":

http://www.i2k.com/~svderark/lexicon/help.html

As for whether it's worth owning both, that's a matter of opinion.  If 
you have the British editions than there is nothing really special 
about the U.S. ones (except the very nice chapter heading 
illustrations by Mary GrandPre), they were simply altered for 
understanding by an American audience, not content.  There is more 
interest in buying the British editions if you only have the American 
ones for the purposes of either collectability or authenticity (since 
they were the original text, they are rightly deemed more authentic). 
 Ninety-seven percent of the time, the changes are relatively 
immaterial (minor cultural things, like "car park" vs. "parking lot") 
so it probably wouldn't matter to a casual reader, just nitpickers 
(like many of us here).  But there are a couple less fathomable 
changes like, of course, the change from "Philosopher's Stone" to 
"Sorcerer's Stone".

-Luke (who actually put a signature below, on special, this one time 
only!)

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"England and America are two countries separated by the same 
language." - George Bernard Shaw 

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