> > I'm going to do a comparison myself when I read them. We're already comparing book #4 as Leen reads it. One pleasant surprise was that the American edition let a usage of "fortnight" slip through. One change, however, has us guessing. The British edition, on page 56ish, says, "Bulgaria have got Viktor Krum, though . . . Krum's one decent player; Ireland have got seven." The first "have" Leen thought was a typo, but the second mistake on the very next line had her wondering. We looked it up in the American edition, and we found "has" in both places. In American English, countries and sports teams are singular nouns. Are they plural in British English? Or is it just a truly weird double typo?
>
> I remember having several times read that the Brits do in fact treat team names and the like as if they were plural... I'm sure Beasty should be able to corroborate.
>
> As for "fortnight"...wow. Maybe elementary schoolers will begin to restore the word into the American English vocabulary...nah. But I wish. :)
>
> -- codeman"fount of useless knowledge"38

I am not exactly sure of the rules of grammar regarding this instance, but I will look them up and let people know. I will say that on first impressions the use of 'have' does actually look correct on the page. Reading the sentences and using 'has' seems to grate on my British sense of grammar, so I'll go with 'have'.

Bea 't around the bush and don't do anything ha' sty