From M-W online:

Main Entry: 1fug
Pronunciation: ‘f&g
Function: noun
Etymology: perhaps alteration of 1fog
: the stuffy atmosphere of a poorly ventilated space; also : a stuffy or malodorous emanation
- fug·gy /’f&-gE/ adjective

It’s perhaps a bit archaic, but perfectly correct in the sense Rowling is using it, i.e., “a…malodorous emanation”; and the nineteenth-century feel of it perfectly in keeping with the spirit of the HP books.

This is not a new word to me; I understood it right away.

Unless “fug” means something I’m not aware of.

It’s been a while since I did any work for Ace, and I’m not sure who’s there anymore, but the people I knew back a few years would also, I think, have been receptive to such an approach.

Whenever I’ve sent in corrections, I always preface them with a standard statement something like, “Let me emphasize that I read this book for my own pleasure. I make no claim to have professionally proofread it, nor do I claim to have found all the errors there may be in it; these are simply the ones I noticed.”

If I read the rest of the book and find more typos, I may point them out to someone. I read for pleasure at such a speedy rate (close to a hundred pages an hour, I think) that I’m always amazed when I find any typos at all, though. And I’d hate to send in a “correction” list if I didn’t feel certain I’d caught every error. That perfectionist thing, you know. :-)

At any rate, you might want to call it to Scholastic’s attention so they can fix it in subsequent printings–an easy enough process. More than one publisher keeps files with corrections to be made in later printings. I’ve sent in corrections several times (for example, on Ballantine’s pb of a Charles Willeford crime novel), and in fact this reminds me I have several of their Perry Mason books with flags all over them to mark typos–must send them in sometime.

You might even end up getting some freelance work from Scholastic if you play your cards right!

It’s hard to lay such issues on a publisher now, particularly paperback publishers. All of the Big Publishers use the same printers.

Paperbacks can “age” faster and fall apart if the publisher’s warehouse isn’t properly temperature controlled. But sometimes it’s an intermediary warehouse. I once received about a dozen complaint letters accompanying copies of Rebecca, all with the covers falling off. They had been purchased by high school students for their English class. The books were from different printings, so I knew it couldn’t be a printer issue. They had been puchased at two different bookstores in the town where the kids lived. We finally traced it to a central warehouse for a Big Bookstore Chain. It was in Texas, and the books hadn’t stood up to the heat.

Virtually all mass market paperbacks in the US are printed at one printer in Pennsylvania. Trade paperbacks and standard hardcovers are done at three or four different plants in Virginia and West Virgina. But those plants are owned by only two diffferent companies.

That’s the habits of the Big Five publishers, who account for some 70% of the books published in the US. There are scads of smaller printers who do books for smaller accounts, but if the publisher you were boycotting is one of the Big Five, you might want to check them out again. They can’t be any worse than anyone else.