> The Harry Potter books got changed a bit for the US market, you know, changing "lift" to "elevator" and stuff like that. It wasn't much, but surely it isn't too hard to understand basic Britishisms? I'm pretty sure American boks aren't Britishised, as a rule.

Y'know what irritates me? When British books are published in the US, all the British diction is usually retained-- but, for some inane reason, the publishers often choose to Americanize the author's spelling.

I read on TakeOurWord.com (great linguistic webzine, btw) that there's one copy of the Rime of the Ancient Mariner out there in which the publishers chose to preserve all the original archaic spellings that Coleridge used-- with one exception. The publishers chose to "correct" the spelling of "colour" to "color". Gah.

-- codeman"and yet they don't Briticize the spellings of American books published in Britain..."38