OK, this is just weird. They changed "'No post on Sundays,' he reminded them happily as he spread marmalade on his newspapers," to ""No post on Sundays," he reminded them cheerfully as he spread marmalade on his newspapers,". Most other places, they changed "post" to "mail." Here, they left it, but changed "happily" to "cheerfully"? Why?

Are British rules for those things different?

Probably not. When I taught in Paris at a university where the English professors were fairly evenly divided between Brits and Americans, it was a commonplace that the Americans had "better" grammar.

Case in point, this edit from the British: "I have one myself above my left knee which is a perfect map of the London Underground."

to the American: "I have one myself above my left knee that is a perfect map of the London Underground."

And they changed "mint humbugs" to "peppermint humbugs"? That doesn't make it any clearer to US readers -- I figured out that it's some sort of mint candy, but that's as far as either phrase will get me.

Huh. Looks like they also added the commas for compound sentences. And in at least one case, fixed the subjunctive. Are British rules for those things different?

some British grammar rules are different. For example (and my horror at the time) the past tense of learn is learnt.

The Brits like to leave out commas where I would put them, but put in commas where I would take them out (helloooo comma splices).

Snerk. In trying to google to figure out what a humbug looks like, I found a math paper that says "On the other hand, L2 is the Cayley table of the group of symmetries in 3- space of a traditionally shaped peppermint humbug. This group is often called ..." Unfortunately, it's on JSTOR, which I don't have access to on this computer, so I can't find out the more common math name for it, which leaves me still confused, since "L2" can mean almost anything in different contexts.

I'm disproportionately annoyed (ok, ridiculously enraged) by the change from "large tawny owl" to "large, tawny owl". The tawny owl is a species, which makes that comma as out of place as if it the phrase were "a large, owl". That comma is hurting my eyes. Ow ow ow.

For example (and my horror at the time) the past tense of learn is learnt.

Fowler's accepts both learned and learnt (and they can be pronounced the same when used as a pp.).

they can be pronounced the same when used as a pp

Really? I've always pronounced them differently (three pronounciations now that I think of it: learnt, learnd, and learnéd).

Really? I've always pronounced them differently (three pronounciations now that I think of it: learnt, learnd, and learnéd).

Again, according to Fowler's: Learnéd is only when used as an adjective. In the past tense, the pronounciation is either learnt or learnd--but always monosyllabic.