Do Sneetches Saunter or Hike?

Lazarus loves reading. How he loves to be read to. It has been one of his favorite activities since he was really quite young (somewhere around three months or so I think.) He's quite fond of Dr. Seuss books in particular, and so Sunshine and I have gotten to know quite a few of these books rather well.

Now since we had to move at the end of the summer, there were a couple of months when many of his books were packed away, and during this time, Laz began to get a bit tired of his unpacked books. As a result, we actually ended up buying a new copy of "The Sneetches and Other Stories" even though my Mother had sent him the old version I had as a child. Anyway, as began to unpack the books in the new flat, we uncovered the old book, and I was quite surprised to discover that the text of "The Sneetches" is slightly different between the two versions.

The change is on the second page in the last sentence, which reads "And whenever they met some when they were out walking, they'd saunter right past them without even talking" in the new version. However in my old version, the Star-bellies don't "saunter". Instead, they "...hike on right past...".

Frankly, I prefer the 'new' version, but it seems like a strange thing that there was a change at all. Is this wording that was changed for a British audience? (I kind of doubt it, since many other Americanisms have been left intact in the other UK versions of Dr. Seuss stories.) Perhaps someone decided that children won't know the word "saunter," and at some point it was changed. I don't know. Perhaps I will do a bit of internet searching and see if I can discover when and why this was changed. There must be some obsessive Dr. Seuss fansite somewhere, right?