What do you want to know?

[Hardy Boys UB Fan]

The Casefiles were aimed at the Grade 7 and higher reading level, where as the UB's and Adventure series were aimed at Grade 3 to 6 reading level.  The Original series never had reading levels given to it till the 1980's when Minstrel took over, but even then Minstrel only had the rights from Night Of The Werewolf onward.  But with the Minstrel copies of the Stratemeyer books (up to The Swamp Monster) if you look on the back of the books you can see that the reading level was, for the majority, between a Grade 5.9 and 9.1 level (and reading grade goes by school grade, so at 5.9 you would basically be expecting someone just entering Grade 6 to be able to understand the book).   

Yeah, wish I could get the first casefile, Dead on Target, before they changed it.

[MacGyver]

Do you mean a first edition? I have seen some first (or at least early) editions of the first few Hardy Boys Casefiles float around through thrift stores and such at times (including Dead on Target.)
And as tomswift2002 was saying, keep in mind that the Casefiles was strictly aimed at teenagers, whereas all the other Hardy Boys series have been aimed at the elementary school age kids.

[Hardy Boys UB Fan]

Do you mean a first edition? I have seen some first (or at least early) editions of the first few Hardy Boys Casefiles float around through thrift stores and such at times (including Dead on Target.)
And as tomswift2002 was saying, keep in mind that the Casefiles was strictly aimed at teenagers, whereas all the other Hardy Boys series have been aimed at the elementary school age kids.

No, I mean wasn't there like a sample pack of the first four chapters of the first four books? But they had changed some of the words before going to press?

[tomswift2002]

I've read the sample pack (it was reprinted in the back of the Nancy Drew Files #9 book) but the only difference was that they had taken out the chapter headings, and just condensed the chapters, just like they had done for the first 9 chapters of the Hardy Boys And Tom Swift Ultra Thriller Time Bomb that was printed in The Hardy Boys Casefiles #65 & 66 No Mercy & The Phoenix Equation, where there were paragraphs deleted, but none of the words were different.  It was just a "snapshot" here and there.  And then Evil, Inc. had an even smaller sampling, while the samplings from Cult Of Crime and The Lazarus Plot were the write-up's that appeared as "Frank and Joe's Next Case".

As far as the early Original stories, there was no "Grade Level" used.  They were written with the same level of language as you would get in The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn & Tom Sawyer, A Christmas Carol, and were meant for everyone. 

[Hardy Boys UB Fan]

I've read the sample pack (it was reprinted in the back of the Nancy Drew Files #9 book) but the only difference was that they had taken out the chapter headings, and just condensed the chapters, just like they had done for the first 9 chapters of the Hardy Boys And Tom Swift Ultra Thriller Time Bomb that was printed in The Hardy Boys Casefiles #65 & 66 No Mercy & The Phoenix Equation, where there were paragraphs deleted, but none of the words were different.  It was just a "snapshot" here and there.  And then Evil, Inc. had an even smaller sampling, while the samplings from Cult Of Crime and The Lazarus Plot were the write-up's that appeared as "Frank and Joe's Next Case".

As far as the early Original stories, there was no "Grade Level" used.  They were written with the same level of language as you would get in The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn & Tom Sawyer, A Christmas Carol, and were meant for everyone.

Okay, I thought they said "What the--" a lot in the first casefile

[MacGyver]

Not that I recall. I have never seen any curse words spelt out in any of the Casefiles, which is telling, considering it was aimed at teenagers, whereas the Undercover Brothers books are aimed at children- and yet they've had curse words spelt out in them, sadly.

And yeah- I had forgotten about the sampler pack- that would be a neat little collectible to get.

[Hardy Boys UB Fan]

Guessing the writers back then had more sense to not spell out cuss words. It proves you don't need them to make a good story.

[kosmicdust]

I've read the sample pack (it was reprinted in the back of the Nancy Drew Files #9 book) but the only difference was that they had taken out the chapter headings, and just condensed the chapters.

Actually, there ARE many minor differences between the text in the sampler and what was actually published in the completed books. Here's a comparison of DEAD ON TARGET, with the sampler text in red, and published text in green:

http://postimg.org/image/vu7otv4xh/

[MacGyver]

Wow- I've never seen the sampler text before- thanks for that sample of it and comparison.

[Hardy Boys UB Fan]

Actually, there ARE many minor differences between the text in the sampler and what was actually published in the completed books. Here's a comparison of DEAD ON TARGET, with the sampler text in red, and published text in green:

http://postimg.org/image/vu7otv4xh/

Wow, that's cool. Is there more? Would love to see if there is, but I couldn't find it there.

[tomswift2002]

Guessing the writers back then had more sense to not spell out cuss words. It proves you don't need them to make a good story.

Even in the Minstrel books from the same time period, if a character cursed it was written where it was mentioned in the background details, such as in "Terminal Shock" where Joe mentions Frank "swearing" at his computer when Frank gets angry at it, but you don't see an actual curse word.

[Hardy Boys UB Fan]

Even in the Minstrel books from the same time period, if a character cursed it was written where it was mentioned in the background details, such as in "Terminal Shock" where Joe mentions Frank "swearing" at his computer when Frank gets angry at it, but you don't see an actual curse word.

Yeah, so why the sudden explosion of it with the UB's and now the Adventure series?

[tomswift2002]

Yeah, so why the sudden explosion of it with the UB's and now the Adventure series?

Break-down of culture.

[MacGyver]

Just to clarify, have there been written out curse words in the "Adventures" books?

[kosmicdust]

Break-down of culture.

Hardly: are you aware of the prevalence of bad language in classic works such as Chaucer? Plus, the widespread use of racial slurs in books from the early to mid twentieth century. Plus, let's be honest: to all intents and purposes 'gosh' and 'darn' are just 'God' and 'damn' spelled in a different way to avoid offense.

Having said all that, I'd prefer the books to avoid curse words and find more inventive and original ways for the characters to express themselves.