I just had no idea that learnt and learned were ever pronounced the same.

Uh, with some of the accents around here they are.

Making a book more appealing to a larger population with minor vocabulary tweaks just strikes me as a variant on translation.

Well, yes. It's a variant on translation which doesn't actually open a text up to people who would otherwise be unable to access it, but instead saves children from having to grapple with the disturbing notion that normal people - people they can like, care about, feel emotionally invested in - live in a culture that is not quite the same as their own. That ordinariness is subjective, and the things they take for granted aren't the only, or even the most common, trappings of everyday life.

Pretending that people in other countries are exactly like oneself isn't actually all that much more helpful than pretending that they're evil and incomprehensible, and I think this bowdlerization process is symptomatic of a profoundly depressing attitude to otherness.

If the minor - but real - differences between the UK and the US are deemed too difficult and confusing to try to recognise or understand, and are airbrushed into bland familiarity, then there's precious little hope of recognising or understanding the much larger differences of lifestyle and outlook that seperate the US from most other places.

eta

Ooh, the link to the actual changes made in the first book is very interesting. Thanks for that.

I'm a bit gobsmacked that the US text went out of its way to inject a brand new line that established Dean's skin colour during the sorting. Huh.

The second one was very dykealicioius too, as I recall.

Dude, you read a whole different set of books than I did.

Hec's said that before, and the only thing I can think of is the story of Belle Tarkington and rescuing Mrs. Brace-Gideon's cats.

Elizabeth Enright's uncle was Frank Lloyd Wright.

I didn't know that. I googled and found that her marriage made Elizabeth Enright's mother's name be Maginel Wright Enright. I didn't really that EE died so young, either.

I just had no idea that learnt and learned were ever pronounced the same.

Uh, with some of the accents around here they are.

Indeed. I thoroughly confused someone recently because I pronounce Plato and playdough identically.

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

OMG. So funny. I've only ever seen ita use the word "learnt" and have always thought she was just being funny!

I r dum Merricun.

I thoroughly confused someone recently because I pronounce Plato and playdough identically.

In my head, they sound different, but they come out the same.

I worked on a production of As you Like It in school where the acting coach tried to get the tech crew to stop pronouncing Duke as Dook, so the actors would not be influenced by our NA accents.

I assume that some people pronounce it with a "t" sound just because they've seen the -t spelling.

I pronounce it with a "t" because that's how it's pronounced. I mean, I know North Americans often conflate the "t" and the "d" sounds, but I didn't know it happened here.

I've only ever seen ita use the word "learnt" and have always thought she was just being funny!

Ha! I've gotten shit for "dreamt" before, which was a weird-assed argument.

Are there people pronouncing "dreamt" and "dreamed" the same too?

In my head, they sound different, but they come out the same.

Hah! This.

My new sister-in-law was going on about her young daughter's pret-ty shoes for the wedding and I thought she was just saying it that way because her daughter did. It took awhile for the "Oh, not everyone says it priddy" moment.

There's a couple movements in krav that I'd describe using the term "teeter totter" but I had to stop because everyone got so distracted by all the "t" sounds in it. So now I say "seesaw."

Weirdos.

Are there people pronouncing "dreamt" and "dreamed" the same too?

Not me. "Dreamed" has a long E sound, while "dreamt" is like "drimt." I don't pronounced "learned" and "learnt" the same, either, but they're much closer because the vowel is the same.

Incidentally, I'd never use "learnt" unless for some reason I was deliberately trying for English usage, but I use both "dreamed" and "dreamt" depending on context. "Dreamed" is more likely to be the literal--"I dreamed about Stephen Colbert last night," while "dreamt" is more my dream-come-true word--as in, I hope I'll someday say, "I dreamt of publication for years, and now I've finally sold a book."

It could be that I'm alone in this, though.