British vs. American Editions (was Re: Database...)

[Scott]

Amanda wrote:
"I would love to hear, when we get around to having people who've 
read both versions, whether anything is different between them this 
time. I noticed several "Britishisms" in this one, and I thought 
perhaps the publishers decided that their audience *could* handle 
unfamiliar words and idioms without imploding."

--My British edition came Thursday, but I haven't had time to finish 
it yet. Mostly the differences seem minimal, certainly the least of 
any of the books so far, and are confined to the spelling of words 
such as "neighbours"/"neighbors" or "pyjamas"/"pajamas". As in the 
other books the "Minister for Magic(B)" has been changed to 
the "Minister *of* magic(A)", and notably(?) "Careers Advice(B)" has 
been changed to "Career Advice(A)". (I assumed though, perhaps 
incorrectly that the word "career" is always plural in British 
English just as "math" is referred to as "maths", but that the 
addition of an "s" doesn't really change the meaning-- ie make it 
plural. Is that correct?)

It seems odd to change the spellings when the phrases are what might 
confuse people (I'm still not sure what they mean by...something 
about mickey), and after all collective nouns are plural in both 
books so the grammar doesn't appear to have been edited.

Has anyone noticed anything else? It's easy in the mass of words 
that is OOP to overlook something...

Scott