That's not surprising, but for literature, they really should at least put a notice on that they're doing that. The phrase is definitely obscure in the US to the point of being completely unintelligible, but a footnote or annotation would have sufficed, especially if it's come up multiple times.

But yes, localizing to American English if you don't have the option of doing both is the way to go. American English is the prevalent form at this point and with all the AMerican movies, it's less likely to slip something in that people aren't going to understand.

But, it does happen, I know my Welsh coworker had issues sometimes understanding me. Probably as often as I had understanding him.
The Beetle's cartoon for The Yellow Submarine did something really funny with that early on in the film. I don't want to spoil the joke, but once I realized that I didn't know how to pronounce Liverpool, it was really funny.
Hmm, this thread reminds me that I should probably try to watch Gosford Park again, and turn on the subtitles. I'm sure it was a wonderful film, but for the target audience in America, they were completely unintelligible throughout the film. Leaving one to ponder what was going on at any given time.
I agree, sometimes you really do need to do it. I remember struggling to watch Gosford Park when it came out years back because I could literally not understand a word they were saying. I really should try again with subtitling.

But, for something like the OP is referencing, the edition should have been notated as being adjusted at a minimum. And really they should have annotated the few really obscure phrases like that otherwise it could be easy to just assume that to go spare isn't a real phrase in any dialect of English or not know what it means.

I did not say it was the prevalent form. I implied it was the lowest common denominator. The prevalent form is apparently Panglish, though I have my doubts on that.

American English is by far the most common English in the world if you exclude the ephemeral creoles and pigeons that lack any meaningful staying power. It's what folks get the most exposure to internationally from music and films and it's what you have to know and use if you want to do business reliably with America.

But, just having roughly 300m or so native speakers makes it the most common form even without anybody else speaking it. Also, the various dialects within the US are mostly a matter of pronunciation and the rules tend to be really straightforward.

The British Commonwealth would like to laugh at your claim and point out that Commonwealth English is the version taught in most former colonies including India (where it is now the most commonly spoken language (over 100million readers though a larger number can speak it thought to be about 40% or you know ~500million people)) Australia (another 20ish million though I grant you they use a mix of US and British spellings as does Canada which also adds French to the mix) The UK and Ireland ~100million... technically the most common spoken English would likely be the Indian dialect I suppose, but the most common written is likely to be British English

The British Common Wealth should do some research before making such ludicrous claims. The US alone has more English speakers than India does. So, no Indian English isn't more common than American English is. We have twice as many native speakers as they have total speakers of English.

Admittedly, this source is a bit out of date, but it still demonstrates the point quite well. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_English-speaking_population

I have never once heard another Brit say "Happy Christmas". Not once. Growing up in the South East, no one ever said that. Then, studying in the North, again, no one ever said that.

The question on the Indian census asks if you're over 21 it doesn't ask below that age it also only asks your first 3 languages, the government itself admits that speakers are much higher than official numbers. It was officially recognised this year as the most common spoken language in the country by said government.
A non government body found 45% of young students in India could read English and many more speak it and when asked said they had also taught their parents. More signs and products are now in English than Hindi(550million known speakers think about that the government thinks that more than that speak English)... Basically don't trust Wikipedia's numbers on this they are outta date. The reason is simple if you can speak English you can get a job in the service industry (~40% of India's GDP and only employing ~2%) families want English speaking families because of the "instant" wealth it brings if they are lucky and fluent.

In film there's no need for a translation because there are many clues that are not evident in a book; tone, body language, inflection, and so on.

I would think book publishers would translate phrases that are not self evident. In common American English "spare" means wither 1) extra or, 2) picking up a final pin in bowling; neither of them lend themselves to erratic and possibly violent behavior. "going postal," actually has a historical context in America, during the '80's several postal workers shot and killed their coworkers.

On a side note, I'm a big fan of several British authors (Simon R. Green, Terry Pratchet, Neil Gaiman, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle) and I have yet to get an "American translation" of a British novel and have never needed to look up any regional phrase, because the author made the meaning of a phrase clear through context.

Not too! We don't call them sidewalks here. Keeveek just wrote them the wrong way around.

He ought to have typed "Do Americans really need to read about sidewalks instead of pavements".

Huh ... I was wondering about that - I had just assumed Pizza Hut had given them a lot of money to change it later - because I saw the version with Pizza hut

Again, I've heard it plenty. It must just be amazing fluke that you haven't heard it used, because it is used and isn't unusual.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holiday_greetings#History_of_the_phrase

We sometimes use pavements too - though generally we are referring to just the surface when we do - i.e. "he fell on the pavement [of the sidewalk]"

Yeah that's generally how we use it (or at least how I use it and how I've always heard it used, different locations in the US may be different) - the pavement is the ground or surface of the sidewalk, especially when made of concrete. Occasionally pavement may be the same as sidewalk, but that's almost always referred to as "sidewalk".

You interpreted my post right. We don't use 'pavement' to mean the entire thing 'sidewalk', but it can be used to mean the surface of the sidewalk, or the surface of a concrete road. Around here it's usually just "She fell on the sidewalk", though. No need to point out that she hit the surface, that's just assumed. :)