Artemis Fowl Confidential The Ultimate Artemis Fowl Fan Site
Guest post by Jeffery Francis
In a matter of weeks, The Fowl Twins sequel, Deny All Charges, will be unleashed upon the world. We can’t wait! To pass the time until then, we thought we’d take a look back at the incredible first globe-trotting Beckett and Myles adventure.
The Fowl Twins was released on November 5, 2019, published by Disney-Hyperion in the US and HarperCollins in the UK. As it turns out, the two versions have quite a few little differences! No big plot points, anything regarding story flow or pacing, or other major details was changed. But there are dozens of small alterations. Almost all of them are localization-related or little punctuation edits, but there’s a few notable ones that are a little more significant in terms of content. After many hours spent meticulously comparing the two versions side by side, line by line, listed here are the ten most notable differences for the most detail-oriented fans among us.
Caution: contains spoilers for The Fowl Twins
10. Commas, Commas, Commas
Commas are used all the time in writing. But, it turns out, the two versions disagree on where exactly they should fall. There are a whopping 167 commas in the UK text that are not in the US text, and vice-versa: a completely different set of 174 commas that are in the US but not in the UK. That works out to about every single page in the book you read either including a comma that’s not in the other version, or omitting one that is. There’s around ten to fifteen per page that are in both.
About half of the US-exclusive commas are “Oxford Commas,” or, commas after the last item mentioned in a group, set, or list. The UK text never uses one. Depending on how it was originally written, someone either had to manually remove them all for the UK edition, or manually insert them all for the US edition. Other than this regional grammar choice, all the other commas in question are in the middle of ordinary non-list sentences, some of which flow differently as a result. The overall flow of the novel is the same in both editions, as Eoin Colfer’s style is not mitigated in the slightest in either edition. But at the end of the day, the UK text does noticeably read with slightly more flavorful mid-sentence pauses, whereas the US version could be considered a little “cleaner.”
9. Regional slang and verbiage
Depending on what country you’re from, some words are just spelled differently. There’s the widely-known extra letter in words like color/colour, but there’s also other things. For example, for US words like “apologize,” in the UK, the suffix -ize is never used; it’s always -ise (“apologise”) instead. There are dozens of these tiny regional spelling differences, which makes reading the version of English you’re not used to a trifle odd at first. If you do pick up the version from the other side of the Atlantic, you’ll get used to it after just a little while, but afterwards, you may find yourself not remembering how many L’s are supposed to be in “marvellous” or “wilfully.”
Aside from universal spelling variations like that, 25 entire words or phrases in the novel are swapped for a totally different word that means the same thing. Some of these changes may seem counterintuitive, and some aren’t even necessarily region-specific terminology, they’re just different for some reason.
| US | UK |
| semitruck | articulated lorry |
| washroom | bathroom |
| recess | breaktime |
| cotton candy | candyfloss |
| automobiles | cars |
| jungle gyms | climbing frames |
| stall (as in shower stall) | cubicle |
| beef jerky | dried beef |
| pacifiers | dummies |
| in the sight of the law | in the eyes of the law |
| washcloth | facecloth |
| soccer | football |
| groundskeeper | groundsman |
| gummy candy | gummy sweets |
| vacation | holiday |
| cell | mobile phone |
| news anchor | newsreader |
| tic-tac-toe | noughts and crosses |
| in the cards | on the cards |
| Tylenol | paracetamol |
| stroller | pushchair |
| trash can | rubbish bin |
| penny-ante | small-stakes |
| pants | trousers |
| windshield | windscreen |
Units of measurement are another aspect of the localization process, with dozens of Metric vs American changes throughout. None of them ever impact the overall story or staging, but there are some tiny variations in lore as a side effect of the conversions, such as Lazuli’s ears being evolved to pinpoint sounds’ origins to within either a millimetre or an inch, depending on the version of the book you have.
8. Clarified fairy lore
There’s two distinct places where fairy lore is clarified in one version more than another. On page 1 of all places, we find our first actual content difference, small though it may be. An unidentified fairy narrates the prologue, saying in the US version “For ten thousand years, fairies have used our magic and technology to shield ourselves from prying eyes.” Well, the UK version doesn’t include the word “our.” It just says “For ten thousand years, fairies have used magic and technology to shield ourselves from prying eyes.” A small change, yes, but it could be interpreted in the UK version that the fairies have been using outside sources of magic (not their own), or have been using other people’s technology, to hide from prying eyes. The US version has no such wiggle room.
The other change is a tad bit bigger. On US page 195, Myles and Lazuli are having trouble figuring out how Beckett is able to converse with the troll named Whistle Blower in the windmill. Lazuli, incredulous, says: “Even fairies with the gift of tongues haven’t been able to speak with trolls. Not anymore really. Nothing more than basic commands.” Myles then says, a few lines later: “I’m inferring from what you said that ancient fairies could converse with trolls.” Because Lazuli said “not anymore,” Myles is able to infer that fairies used to be able to converse with trolls long ago, and since Beckett was once possessed by a fairy that lived long ago, Beckett has that ancient talent too.
The odd thing is, the UK version does not contain the word “anymore” in Lazuli’s explanation. Her line in the UK, which falls on page 237 (the two editions have different font sizes, creating a page number discrepancy), is: “Even fairies with the gift of tongues haven’t been able to speak with trolls. Not really. Nothing more than basic commands.” It sounds here like fairies have never been able to converse with trolls. But then Myles says his same line about inferring that fairies used to be able to do it. In the UK, that Myles line doesn’t follow. He has no information presented to him that suggests fairies once could converse with trolls beyond basic commands, because Lazuli doesn’t say “not anymore.”
So, if you read the US version, it’s definite that fairies have used their magic and technology to hide, and it’s stated more clearly from Lazuli that fairies used to be able to converse with trolls in a way that goes beyond basic commands.
7. Two gags exclusive to the US
There’s two brief funny moments in the US version which are not present in the UK version, and for the first one, it’s not even the words themselves that are funny, it’s how they’re presented. On page 34 in the US, it’s a few paragraphs deep into chapter 2, introducing Lazuli, when it says, in the middle of the text, “This unusual individual was Lower Elements Police Specialist Lazuli Heitz, who, Five Minutes Earlier, entered the island’s airspace to complete a training maneuver in the Fowl safe zone.” The “five minutes earlier” is bolded and capitalized. But in the UK, the entire sentence, falling on page 41, is completely normal text, not capitalized or bolded.
Throughout the entire Artemis Fowl series, whenever it would cut to a different scene, it would bold and capitalize location-setting text at the start of the scene, whether it was in the middle of a chapter or the beginning. In the climax of The Opal Deception, for example, when everything is going on in the E7 Chute with the shuttles and the bombs and the probe, it would cut to a different scene, and then say, for example, “E7, Ten Minutes Earlier.” To then have one of these dramatic, bolded scene headers appear exactly as they always have, but right in the middle of a paragraph in The Fowl Twins, something that’s never happened before in the series, is a stylistic sight gag of sorts. It’s particularly effective if you’ve been reading this series for years and are used to the font they use and how the headers look. It’s an unexpected and fun application of playing around with typeface, one that is not present in the UK version, which unfortunately does not even use the same font the series has been using in both regions for 20 years.
The second US-exclusive gag is not as subtle. Later in the story, Myles recognises the sound of Lord Teddy’s door lock’s electronic keypad, and thinks to himself “aha!” But the US version has something the UK version does not. Here is the paragraph in first the UK version, and then the US version, which falls on page 305 and page 252, respectively:
“Aha! he thought. A Portunus Five-Star keypad. And now I know the code.”
“Aha! he thought (actually thinking the interjection aha!). A Portunus Five-Star keypad. And now I know the code.”
The UK does not contain the parentheses or anything within them; it’s cut-and-dry. But in the US, the narrator interjects and clarifies that Myles literally thinks to himself the verbatim phrase aha! Also, if you’re wondering why one of those has italics and the other doesn’t, just wait until you get to #1 on this list…
Check out PART 2
