Nitpicker's Guide to William Goldman's The Princess Bride

page 9: Goldman makes several references to "Simon Morganstern", the author of the original (unabridged) Princess Bride. As nearly as I can tell, there is no Simon Morganstern. The entire book, including the supposedly "quoted text" and Goldman's story of his Florin-born father, is purely Goldman-written fiction. Wei-Hwa Huang (whuang@ugcs.caltech.edu) adds that Florin and Guilder are units of currency, adding to the preface that the story is faked, since Goldman claimed his father actually came from the non-existant Florin.
page 39: Goldman notes "this chapter is totally intact", but on page 59 refers to his "first major excision". Actually, it's his first excision of any sort, not just the first major one.
page 53: Wei-Hwa Huang (whuang@ugcs.caltech.edu) notes that multiplictive formulas can be weighted by altering the exponents, and gives the 'weighted geometric mean' as an example. I (Sarang Gupta) had earlier that multiplictive formulas couldn't be weighted.
page 56: Buttercup claims she must never love again and the author confirms "She never did." This isn't quite accurate. Although she never loved anyone else, she did love Westley again.
page 82: Vizzini is described as dark and almost humpbacked. In the movie, he is fair-skinned and does not show any signs of humpbackedness. The Turk is described as mustachioed, while the Spainard is not described as mustachioed (although the description doesn't specify that he's bare-faced either). In the movie, the Turk is bare-faced and the Spainard is mustachioed.
page 83: The Turk suggests killing Buttercup now; in the movie, he thinks it's wrong to kill an innocent girl.
page 85: Vizzini notes "the sharks will get her." In the movie, it was eels, perhaps because eels are easier to film?
page 137: The Man in Black meets Vizzini under the moonlight. In the movie, this was daylight, possibly because it's easier to film in daylight. Similarly, note that in the book the Sicilian Crowd reaches the Cliffs of Insanity in about an hour (page 84), while, in the movie, they reach the cliffs "by dawn". Also (page 115), Inigo and the Man in Black fight in moonlight, not in daylight.
page 139: Vizzini notes "a great fool ... would place the wine in his own goblet". Actually, there's wine in both goblets. He probably meant to say poison instead of wine.
page 144: Westley slaps Buttercup for lying. In the movie, he only threatens to do so. My guess is that Hollywood doesn't look kindly on the good guy striking an innocent woman (of course, at this point, we don't the Man in Black is a good guy, but we do find this out later).
page 183: Buttercup's arithmetic suffers even in dreamland. The dream starts with "fifty-five days to go [to the wedding]"; then "forty-eight hours" after the new doctors came on the case, "the King was dead", and Humperdink became King "forty-five days before the wedding". This suggests it took 8 days to bring new doctors on the case, an unusually long time when the King's health is at stake!
page 196: Humperdinck asks if there's "nothing the follow can't do", misspelling the word fellow.
page 204: Rugen introduces Westley to the phrase "as important as pain and death". I wonder if this is what inspired Westley to battle Humperdinck "to the pain" instead of "to the death".
page 239: Inigo uses the six-fingered sword in all his battles. His own father earlier explained (to Count Rugen) how a master swordsman must be comfortable with his weapon. Inigo is rated above master (as wizard), but uses a sword designed for another man, a man who has six fingers; doesn't this cramp his style?
page 277: Westley changes his threat to Humperdinck. Originally he says, "if you choose to fight, well, then, we will not both leave alive." However, later, he says "If we duel and I win, life for you [on Westley's terms]" In the latter case, they would both leave alive.

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