London - Disney versions of the modern ‘Winnie the Pooh’ have been criticised for being strewn with errors and for having Americanisms inserted to appeal to a wider audience.
Linda Weeks, a mother and librarian, said that she noticed the errors creeping into the new editions of the Pooh books.
“I’ve gotten all spruced up for spring,” the Telegraph quoted Eeyore as saying in one book.
In another adventure, the donkey talks about being reunited with his tail.
“Swishes real good, too,” the donkey said.
A skipping rope is called by its American name “jump rope” and a handkerchief is spelt hankerchief while moustache spelt mustache.
“AA Milne would never have written the word ‘gotten’, so why has it been put in there?” she said.
“There are so many things – they talk about them playing chequers, instead of chess or draughts,” Weeks said.
Weeks, from Maidstone, Kent, noticed the mistakes as she read the books to her daughter.
Other books in the series including ‘Alice in Wonderland’, ‘Sleeping Beauty’ and ‘Snow White’ were also error strewn.
She even claims Doc from the seven dwarfs has been drawn without his well known glasses.
Weels said that fairies were named wrongly and whales slapped their “tales” in one of the books.
In ‘Alice in Wonderland’, always is written as "all ways".
Parragon, the book publishers based in Bath, said it was investigating how mistakes crept into the new editions of ‘The Magical Story’ by Disney.
However, it said that some terms had been used to enable the “widest possible audience’ to enjoy the stories.
It also added that it was disappointed not to have met its own high standards in the series published in 2010.
“We do have a proofreading system in place but, despite our best endeavours, occasionally mistakes are not picked up,” a Parragon spokesman told the BBC.
“The issues you highlighted pertain to one particular series published two years ago and we are disappointed this has not achieved our high standards and will investigate further how this occurred.
“When errors are identified, they are recorded in our systems and automatically corrected at the time of the next reprint.
“With regard to your point on ‘Americanisms’, we sell our books around the world and not just the UK and so we sometimes need to adapt the language accordingly to make it accessible for the widest possible audience,” the spokesman added.
Today : Saturday - May 26, 2012, 02:26pm (GMT+5.5)
