posted
(thread title edited because it was really starting to bug me, and I can)
So, the doorbell rang just before 8pm Saturday evening. I couldn't make it to the door in time, but I figured that if it was HP6, they would leave it. (I also didn't think it was all that likely it was HP6.) When I checked a bit later, no package, and no little sticky "we attempted delivery" either.
Ok, I had assumed it would come Monday, so that was fine. Today I got home about 3pm, and again -- no package, no sticky thing. So I checked with tracking (as I did yesterday, but it hadn't been updated then) and it was indeed them trying to deliver Saturday night.
After trying to get 1-800-ASK-USPS to help me, get me to a human being, SOMETHING, I got smart and called my local post office directly.
The person in charge there sounds a bit frazzled (why, I wonder? ) but promised me she will personally track down my package and call me back before 5pm.
However, given what a pain-in-the-neck it usually is for me to GET to a store (or even the library!), it is generally simpler to have it delivered. Especially since I generally get free shipping.
And they've never failed to simply LEAVE the book if I'm not there before!
Posts: 32919 | Registered: Mar 2003
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posted
Whenever I get really excited about computer parts that I buy from Newegg, I always get very anxious about the delivery. I'll hit the 'Refresh' button on the FedEx tracking information page over and over for hours on end - it is scary.
This probably wont make you feel any better but, whenever I have something coming to me in the mail it always seems like ages until it gets here.
On the plus side, very few things actually get lost or wrongly delivered by the USPS (relatively speaking, of course).
Posts: 367 | Registered: Apr 2004
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And they're holding it for me. I have someone coming here at 4:30-5:30, but right after that, off to the post office I go! (and I won't even have to wait in line)
posted
My son picked up our copy at the A&P for $14.99. Kinda made all this "reserving a copy" stuff seem overrated.
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And yeah, next time I'll skip the pre-ordering. Ralph's had 'em. Although I'm not sure how much for.
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quote:However, given what a pain-in-the-neck it usually is for me to GET to a store (or even the library!), it is generally simpler to have it delivered.
quote:And they're holding it for me. I have someone coming here at 4:30-5:30, but right after that, off to the post office I go!
Does anyone else here see the irony here?
Posts: 10397 | Registered: Jun 2005
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posted
When I saw the thread title, I thought this thread was a reaction to the ENDING of Harry Potter VI...
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posted
It's sooo good when your mother works in a bookstore!
They only had that silly Amrican publication available, unless you pre-order. My mother, of course, managed to pre-order on the spot, so I got it the night it was out here.
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I don't understand why the American version had to change words. "shorts" instead of "pants" I can deal with, "Sourcerer's Stone" instead of "Philosopher's Stone" is really pushing it, but "amazing" instead of "brilliant"?!?!?! That's going too far!!!
Posts: 803 | Registered: Dec 2004
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posted
But "brilliant" isn't generally used in the sense in question in the U.S., especially by children...
Anyway, for more on the U.S. vs. U.K. editions, I refer you to my 2002 essay, A Stone By Any Other Name: Harry Potter and the Unstable Text. (Note that this has a few typos -- most notably, Lolita was written in English and then translated into Russian, not the other way around -- and the whole section about the Dean Thomas paragraph has since been addressed by Rowling.)
Posts: 884 | Registered: Mar 2005
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posted
I much prefer the british versions. I lived there for a year (that's when I read the first HP book) and I find the dialogue to be much more entertaining when it still contains the British words.
Posts: 132 | Registered: Apr 2005
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Shmuel, Swell essay. I'd read the Brit edition of the first book, and haven't read the American version. Now I want to read the Scholastic version to see how the differences resonate.
Posts: 10397 | Registered: Jun 2005
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posted
I noticed that they left the swearing in the Scholastic version this time. I read both the British and American versions of 5 and there was definitely less swearing in the American version. The British version also had the word "revising" instead of "studying." It took me a bit to figure out what they were referring to. Posts: 6415 | Registered: Jul 2000
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It's a British book, the kids are from Britain, so they should talk like British kids talk. I loathe it when editors try to change stuff up like that to make it easier or more accessible to U.S. readers. They sap all the flavor out of it! It's a desecration! How else are we going to learn very important vital information such as what it means when someone is chuffed?
My War and Peace has the names all simplified for non-Russian speakers, too. It's a terrible translation altogether, in fact. Don't buy the Penguin War and Peace, whatever you do.
I really really hate it when stupid editors trample over good books like that. Why must they do it? Why? Are we so brainless that they have to dumb them down for us? Erase all the differences and flavor? Grrr, these are books, not television!
Posts: 6246 | Registered: Aug 2004
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quote:It's a British book, the kids are from Britain, so they should talk like British kids talk. I loathe it when editors try to change stuff up like that to make it easier or more accessible to U.S. readers. They sap all the flavor out of it! It's a desecration! How else are we going to learn very important vital information such as what it means when someone is chuffed?
posted
I agree as well. I grew up reading British books almost as often as those by American authors -- loads of Enid Blyton's stuff and . . . um, blanking on titles, but the pink book and the blue book about the family with lots and lots of kids, several named after saints, who are always getting in trouble/having adventures. Sort of paralleled the All of a Kind Family books for me. One about a family growing up in the Lower East Side, one about a family growing up on the edge of London (I think).
I dislike rather intensely that they edit out the Britishisms in the HP books. I hear the UK versions of the books are shorter as well. Extra exposition for us dim-bulb Americans?
Posts: 32919 | Registered: Mar 2003
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quote:I hear the UK versions of the books are shorter as well. Extra exposition for us dim-bulb Americans?
No. Smaller typeface, less leading (that is, less space between lines of type), and no illustrations at the start of each chapter.
Posts: 884 | Registered: Mar 2005
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What I want to know is why the American copy is different from the Canadian one? I mean, Canadians are socially closer to America than England and yet they recieve the English version without a flicker from the publisher. Peculiar.
Personally, I think "translating" books for Americans it's not only a waste of time it's also uneccessary. If you don't get it, look it up! American movies aren't "translated" for British audiences, are they?
Posts: 8473 | Registered: Apr 2003
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quote:I mean, Canadians are socially closer to America than England and yet they recieve the English version without a flicker from the publisher. Peculiar.
All Raincoast does for the Canadian edition is reproduce the Bloomsbury version; no additional typesetting is involved, barring the title and copyright pages. I'm supposing there are business reasons accounting for them using that one rather than the U.S. edition.
quote:American movies aren't "translated" for British audiences, are they?
No more often than British movies are translated for American audiences. On the other hand, American children's books are quite definitely translated for British readers, and I say that as somebody who's read U.K. versions of the Hardy Boys and Little House on the Prairie. (Granted, most of the changes in the latter were in punctuation, although I don't know why "pease porridge hot" needed to be changed to "bean porridge hot." The former was changed more extensively, as I recall.)
quote:Originally posted by rivka: You don't get those lovely illustrations?
Yeah, I do think it's worth noting that the design and production of the Scholastic editions are beautiful; the Bloomsbury ones are merely adequate.
Posts: 884 | Registered: Mar 2005
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quote: What I want to know is why the American copy is different from the Canadian one? I mean, Canadians are socially closer to America than England and yet they recieve the English version without a flicker from the publisher. Peculiar.
Canadian English isn't the same as either American or UK English - it's sorta halfway between. We accept color or colour, neighbor or neighbour, grey or gray, artifact or artefact, and so on.
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) but promised me she will personally track down my package and call me back before 5pm.
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The British version also had the word "revising" instead of "studying." It took me a bit to figure out what they were referring to. 
