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Subscribe to RSSI write “Gaddafi,” you write “Khaddafy,” let’s call the whole regime off!
Libya’s leader has been on the world stage for more than 40 years, since he seized power in 1969 – yet major news organizations cannot agree on how to spell his name.
What gives? Why the disconnect? Apparently the difficulty of translating Arabic into English (as well as other languages) has stymied any uniform spelling.
Patrick Kovarik / AFP - Getty Images
Click on the photo above to see a slideshow of the life and times of Libya's mercurial and flamboyant leader Moammar Gadhafi.
However, the Business Insider thought that was a lame excuse, so they provided a good explanation of the subtleties of the Arabic translation in a column headlined: “EXPLAINED! Why No One Knows How The Hell To Spell Qaddafi/ Gadhafi/Gaddafi/ Qadhafi.”
Meantime here is a short list of some of the various spellings by major news organizations.
AP style (which msnbc.com follows): Moammar Gadhafi
Reuters/BBC/ Al Jazeera English: Muammar Gaddafi
New York Times: Muammar el-Qaddafi
Washington Post: Moammar Gaddafi
New York Post: Col. Moamar Khadafy
CBS News: Muammar Qaddafi
AFP: Moamer Kadhafi
And there are apparently dozens of other spellings. So many that when ABC News tackled the question two years ago they discovered 112 different spellings.
What do you think? Which spelling would you go with?
Leave a Comment:
I'd go with Cad-Daffy
Personally, I don't much care how his name is spelled. Hopefully he will go away very soon, for a long long time and it won't matter, unless in the news reports about his trial.
Isn't Mo Mar one of the three stooges?
the correct spelling is d-o-u-c-h-e the definition of that name is much like the english version of the word
Why are we being so nice to this Idiot of a Man, but this is an Insult to Women, calling him a douche try the other end!
As concluded by the Saturday Night Live skit so many years ago, the final answer is CadDaffy Duck.
This pig of a man still has an entire jumbo jet full of lives to pay for. I hope justice is served swiftly upon him, it's been long enough.
If the west (America) can ask the Arabs (Arabic) themselves, they will tell you and you wont have this confusion. It's a case of the west trying to Explain or Define what is foreign to them when if you ask the Arabic speakers they will tell you and you wont try to figure out yourself.
This only tells me that you have had an ally you can't even spell his name. But you have had no problem to spell his oil.
Why don't you go ask them?
They spell it in Arabic, and there is no standard method for transliteration from Arabic to English. So we try for phonetic transliterations. Arabs insist that any translation from Arabic into any other language is, by default, inaccurate and incomplete. So they haven't set standards for it. If you want to get it right, they would say, just use Arabic.
We think of the "G" and "K" sound as distinct and separate, for instance. But if you actually say them, "Guh" and "Kuh" are nearly identical. The "Kuh" sound has a bit of a forceful burst of air at the beginning called an "aspirit." This aspirit makes a difference in English. It's the difference between the words "God" and "Cod."
I don't know for sure, but I'm getting the feeling that in Arabic, both pronunciations "Gadaffi" and "Kadaffi" are considered identical. You can find people in Libya who pronounce it both ways, and can't really tell the difference. They think we're nitpicking about the subtleties of sounds that are almost exactly the same.
Just like how Americans can't tell the difference between tonal nuance in most Chinese words, or the difference between the different "s" sounds in Hindi (one is transliterated with an "s" with a dot over it, and one lacks the dot). But they could mean the difference between using the word "dog" and "mother." A big deal to them, but even when they repeat the two words over and over, we can't tell the difference between them.
The reason the news outlets find this perplexing is because the articles are edited by professional copy editors. They want to make sure all the words are spelled correctly, all the names and countries, and so forth. They know when they screw up, thousands of people jump on their ineptitude and point out missing commas, repeated words, and misspellings. This is the sort of thing that really, really, REALLY bugs writers and editors. They want to be able to look at the style guide for their publication and know they're following the same internally consistent rules as all the other people in their organization. These are the people who can have hours-long, angry arguments about the use of terminal commas.
I'm sure a lot of internet grammar nazis have been emailing them complaining that they're spelling "Q'adaphi" wrong, so they wanted to publicly post an article saying they're doing their best, and explaining why people see different spellings on other news outlets.
This isn't the only spelling problem in converting Arabic to English. Consider Koran/Quran and Moslem/Muslim. And I can think of several variations of names that have been used for the capital of China, too. It happens with Russian too.
maybe they just dont know how to spell over there,but then again ,i have lived in usa 50 years and they still cant spell my name and it is pretty simple,,and when pp ask me where i am from ,;;;they have NO idea where my country is ,so americans learn geografi, like the british prince andrew said ,u dont know geografi,,,,hallo,,,,
And why is this important?
AMEN to this!!!!!!!!!
How about M U R D E R E R ? NATO should intervene militarily immediately to stop the killing.
To:Petra Cahill
I asked this question earlier this morning on an MSNBC post,now I see it as a story ?
Can I get any credit here ?
Nice job this morning!
Soon it will be spelled D E A D.
Mr. DEAD? I am a Former U.S. Marine. In 1986 I was required to perform a one hour speech about possible enemies to America. The speech was on Libya. CHANGE? Lets use our own oil for awhile.
One thing that Republicans and Democrats can agree on...the sooner this "Godaffy" is out of power, the better off the world will be
I was waing for **daffy to show up.
According to my sources, you spell it "Scott Walker".
Oh...that's clever.
Fortunately it won't be long before his name is spelled W-H-O-?
Who cares, he's gonna be dead soon anyway.
KhaaaBoom !!!!!!!!!!!
Maybe its Goofy. So why do we care what he does, says, or anything else about him.
well said goofy ,they all have oatmeal for brains.
I spell it G o o f y - Goofy!
KaaaBoomy !!!!! Thats how I would spell it !!!!
Quote from Brian on Feb 25, 3:19 PM said:
"I was an Arabic linguist for the US Army some twenty years ago, so allow me to give it a shot
There are five letters in the Arabic spelling of Qadhafi. The first consonant is "Qoff"; rendered in English as Q
Qoff is a sound that is halfway between k and hard g. Run g and c together as in the name Agca and you will produce the proper sound. In many Arab dialects Qoff is pronounced as hard g, so Gadhafi is not really a mistake
The second letter is "dhall", rendered as "dh" This consonant sounds like the voiced "th" in them. Arabic has a different letter for the unvoiced "th" as in "think". It is not a d at all, so using a d or dd is simply a mistake
The third letter is Alif or long a, which is generally rendered as "aa" to distinguish it from fatha or short a. So if you're going to get technical, the maniacal POS's name should be spelled Qadhaafi. But because of the way it's pronounced by Arabs, with the accent falling equally on the second and third syllable Qadhafi or Gadhafi is accurrate."
Interesting. If I pronounce Alabama with a mid-western accent, how should I pronounce Obama?
(Regarding quote from Brian the Arabic linguist) I was a Russian linguist for the US Army. I have a Masters degree in philology, and in my opinion your linguistical explaination is fantastic, other than one mistake. The word intonation should have been used instead of the word accent when refering to stress upon syllables, otherwise GREAT! Thanks for the insight!
If you literally transliterate it from Arabic it is best spelled Al-Qathaafee (you can substitue a double I or a Y for the double ee either way it need to be an extended e vowel sound). The third letter is a Qaaf which is closer to Q than K. In English this is nearly always followed by a U as in Queen but try saying Qeen. It is a bit like explaining the difference between Kat and Cat. The fourth letter, when spelt in Arabic, is a Thal which is often transliterated to dh due to there being three disting th sounds in the alphabet. This is the middle th sound where the initial T sounds just a little like a D.
Third letter is a queef - interesting - seems to fit
who gives a S**T?
In Arabic there is a very gutteral sound deep in the throat--so often in English it is common to use a "Q" to start the name. But it's probably closer to using "Gh" if the "G" is sounded deeply in the throat and with an expiration of air. It's almost like clearing one's throat--that's why I explain the sound as originating in the dusty Arab pennusula where one often had to expire air often to get the dust and sound out!!
I spell it dictator-terrorist-murderer.
Isn't there a better topic then this? I don't care how you spell his name, just SHOOT him!
It's spelled L u n a t i c .
Who gives a @!$%# how you spell it!!!! How about butcher, that is how you spell it!! And while we are it, the correct spelling for obama is pussy!!!! It is a disgrace how America has shown weakness in this scenerio!!! How about it Michelle, are proud to be an American now? If you want to be the leading nation in this world you have to roll up your sleeves and do it. Obamma talks a lot of @!$%# but he is the guy that will give up his lunch money to 5th grade bully!!! For the first time in my life I am ashamed to be an American!!! @!$%#ing libs!!
For the first time in my life I am ashamed to be an American!!! @!$%#ing libs!!
then why dont you move to libya macjon!!!
macjon: You sound a little Nazi to me.... your name should be spelled with an "H"
The word "scenerio" is spelled "scenario"....
You know, we are in this terrible economic times because of your pals George and Dick. All the money spent to find WMD's in Iraq. You think you can just go to any country that you don't like and shoot everybody.
b-o-l-o-g-n-a
send a drone to dethrone