The Strange Case of the Altered Spelling

[Geoff Bannister]

No: HPFGUIDX 92790

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "justcarol67" 

Carol:
> For the record, it *ought* to be "Sibyl(l)" to conform with "sibyl"
> (prophetess) unless the British spelling of that word differs from 
the
> American one. (I've recently been told that the British spelling of
> "artifact" is "artefact," which to my eyes still looks like a typo.)


Geoff:
Can I just refer you back to the etymological notes on the name Sybil 
which I posted in message 92650?

Just in passing, spellings like color, honor, center and the rather 
mixed use of z instead of s look odd to UK eyes.....


Carol:
> As for those mysterious numbers, they're the printing history of 
your
> edition of PoA. Ignoring that mysterious 23, which doesn't appear to
> fit the picture, the numbers on the left (which for God knows what
> reason should be read from right to left) indicate that this is the
> fifteenth printing of the American first edition, with nine 
subsequent
> printings anticipated (numbers 16-24). The numbers on the right are
> the years in which some of these new printings are anticipated, with
> 9/9 as the date of the present impression (printing).
> 
> If anyone's curious (and I'm sure nobody is), my Scholastic Trade
> Paperback (first printing, September 2001) has the same reading and
> page number as your hardback and the following printing code
> 
> 12 11 10 9 8 7         1 2 3 4 5 6/0


Geoff:
The Bloomsbury UK editions seem to lack the second set of data. My 
hardback GOF, for example, lists 10 9 8 7 6.