Sweet maverick has sent me the Harry Potter books. (he managed to ship them in 3 days with Sunday delivery! He hasn't yet told me how much the shipping cost!)

I thought you might like to know some of the differences that I've found. I've only compared the first four pages so far, but there are a dozen or so words spelled differently. grey > gray, neighbour > neighbor, realise > realize, and dialling > dialing are some of the ones i remember. They also changed some words and phrases. There's one lovely sentence that used the phrase 'baker's opposite' which has been completely rearranged and uses 'bakery' and 'across the street.' Other changes include changing 'car park' to 'parking lot' and 'lot' to 'bunch.' Of course, as we mentioned in the other thread, the title is different as well. Considering I'm only four pages in and nothing has happened yet I'd say that the differences are considerable to those who enjoy language as we do.

As my classes started back today, I'm not sure how much time I'll have for close analysis of the two versions, nor how much time I'll be spending online, but if I come across any real gems I'll be sure to let you know.

All Hail Maverick! he must have learned some magic from Harry Potter!

The eight-year-old next door asked me what I knew about Harry Potter yesterday while we were child-minding. When I admitted that I had never read any of the books, he looked at me pityingly and said "Never mind, I expect they're too old for you."

Well, he may be right.

Any magic I know, Dr Bill, is more likely to have come from Pullman's His Dark Materials trilogy - I heard him interviewed on the radio the other day, and he has a searing, luminous intelligence. To anyone who has not yet read any of his work, I warmly reccomend a try.