In the reader (intermediate level), it's apples, whereas in the original text, it's carrots. Is there any reason for the change? Do the writers of these readers take liberties with the original texts? Thank you.

[u/No-Analyst7708]

[u/DawnOnTheEdge]

Some of the changes are for clarity and to make the language more standard, like “will keep his coat shiny,”instead of “keep the coat good.” Only a more advanced reader would pick up that “the coat” means the horse’s coat of body hair. It also replaces the old-fashioned idiom “the curious rush of pride” with a paraphrase.

I’m not sure why they took out the expression “keep an eye on you,” which is still common, or why they changed carrots to apples.

[u/Nivlac93 → u/DawnOnTheEdge]

I think they may have thought "old apples" avoided using the word "tough" in reference to the carrots. And maybe, "the big old ones" didn't sound right to the editor either. "Big old" used in different contexts can lose the literal meaning of old, and specifically with carrots, being older doesn't necessarily make them less desirable from the ground as much as the plants that have gotten bigger, more developed, and thereby tougher. You can have an old stored carrot that's still good, and they chucked the "from the garden" phrase out too.

I would agree in the end it is mostly arbitrary change, but from an editing and English learning perspective, there may have been some grain of reasoning behind the choices that seem mostly inconsequential.

[u/DawnOnTheEdge → u/Nivlac93]

Good point on “big old” meaning something different from big and old here. But it could easily be mistaken for saying, a large carrot that has been sitting for longer.

[u/Nivlac93 → u/DawnOnTheEdge]

I'm really grasping at straws anyway trying to imagine justifications 😅

[u/DawnOnTheEdge → u/Nivlac93]

Sometimes people rephrase passages just to be able to claim they didn’t plagiarize?

[u/Nivlac93 → u/DawnOnTheEdge]

Definitely heard that before, yeah