Chattering masses

The BBC, the Guardian and the Telegraph all use Gaddafi, so that's good
enough for me.

 

Good enough for me too, what with it being right.

 

Quite.
I think my spelling of it makes more sense.

 

How can one spelling be more 'right' than another[1], given that he
writes his name in arabic? Honest question. Unless I am missing
something and there is a universally agreed transliteration ruleset
that inflexibly determines the spelling of any arabic word or phrase
into the latin alphabet. According to this article, that is not the
case, there are many choices[2]:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romanization_of_Arabic

[1] other than there is some sort of informal agreement to standardize
on one spelling of common names, amongst the powers that be.

[2] And by the way, you're both apparently 'wrong', since the man
himself has chosen a different Romanization of his name, i.e. "Gadhafi"
(cached link provided because the Minnpost server is currently down):

http://webcache.googleusercontent.c...d=3&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us&source=www.google.com

Or

http://bit.ly/em4tTs

Gaddafi or Qaddafi? Welcome to the transliteration party, friends.

Changing letters or words from one alphabet into the
corresponding letters or words from another alphabet is called
transliteration. Rendering a language from another alphabet (or from
a pictographic system such as Chinese) into the Latin alphabet is
called Romanization.

…The difficulty in Romanizing Arabic was illustrated in the
1980s by the multiple spellings for Libyan strongman Moammar/Muammar
Gadaffi/Gaddafi/Gathafi/Kadafi/Kaddafi/Khadafy/Qadhafi/Qathafi/etc. The
official Library of Congress transliteration would be “Qadhdhafi,â€
but the library opted for “Quaddafi†instead, because the
“dhdh†looked so strange in English. In 1986, most publications,
including the AP, adopted “Gadhafi†as the new standard. Why? The
Libyan leader had sent letters to American schoolchildren and
a minister. The typed name over his Arabic signature: Moammar
El-Gadhafi. (Before that, he had refused to Romanize his name.) The
AP stylebook says, “people are entitled to be known however they
want to be known as long as their identities are clear.â€

From the very helpful 2001 Slate article, How Do You Spell “Osama�

 

And a very good one...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muammar_Gaddafi#Name

Voiced pharyngeal fricatives, indeed.

 

'Gaddafi' is the standard English spelling, therefore that's what
people should use when writing in English. If they don't, they're
either getting it wrong, or trying to be clever.

 

Hmmm. Seems to be a somewhat circular argument on your part. So I'll ask
you another couple of questions at the risk of appearing to be repetitive.

1) Do you believe that there can only be one correct "English[1]" spelling?

Assuming the answer to #1 is "yes":

2) Who do you think is entitled to define the 'standard' English spelling?

I suppose I could conclude that you think the answer to #2 is "The BBC, the
Guardian and the Telegraph". While certainly those organizations have a
lot of weight behind them, I don't see that they have any justification for
claiming their choice is right and others are wrong. If there is such
justification, other than "we're the BBC et al, so we are right", I'd dearly
love to know what it is.

As I pointed out, "Gaddafi" is not the spelling that the man himself
chooses to use in English language correspondence, nor is it the universally
agreed upon standard spelling by the wider English language media. A quick
of three very large english language newspapers, who presumably use style
sheets to guide their editors, finds three different spellings[2], besides the
two that you and "Gaddafi" favor.

[1]There's also the question of whether there must be the same spelling in
all languages that use the latin alphabet but I'll leave that one be.

[2] including one starting with the letter "K".

 

Bollocks.

Muammar ****

See, looks better

 

Excellent, we use that then. That should piss him off.

 

No. But I do believe there is a commonly accepted English spelling used
by the majority of people in the UK, & that's Gaddafi.

Nobody. But if there are several options, the one used by the likes of
the BBC & Al Jazeera is likely to become the most commonly used.

None of them have tried to claim that afaik.

There is no universally agreed upon standard, but if all the British
media decided to come up with one, I'd be amazed if it wasn't Gaddafi.
If in doubt, check the number of Google results for different
spellings. 'Gaddafi' gets several million more results than any of the
other common spellings, which is pretty conclusive proof that it's the
most used in written English.

 

I'll bet Nige uses a different spelling.

 

Yeah, just like with colour, tyre, etc... )

 

Thanks for the answers. I have no disagreement with what you've written.
I just wondered what I was missing. Still, I do find it puzzling that
there remains such a pronounced difference of opinion on the spelling among
various respected media outlets in the wider English speaking world, if
not in the UK.

http://www.csmonitor.com/World/2011/0222/Gaddafi-Kadafi-Qaddafi-What-s-the-correct-spelling

For those few brave editors who press on, the result is a multiplicity
of spellings. The Associated Press, CNN, and MSNBC spell it "Moammar
Gadhafi." The New York Times spells it "Muammar el-Qaddafi." At the
Los Angeles Times, it's "Moammar Kadafi." Reuters, the Guardian,
and the BBC go with "Muammar Gaddafi." The Irish Times goes with
"Muammar Gadafy." ABC News – which spells it "Moammar Gaddafi"
– has posted a list of 112 variations on the English spelling of
the Libyan strongman's name.

At The Christian Science Monitor, we go with "Muammar Qaddafi,"
a spelling that is no more or less defensible than anyone else's.

 

I don't think that Mingetickling Felchbuster would ever get past the
BBC style guide.

 

Hell, at least those _sound_ right, it's biscuit vs. cookie and all
that sort of thing that still makes me laugh.

Although the other day I saw a bag of, wait for it, "crisps" in the
supermercado cerca de mi casa.

 

Unlike 'aluminum', which just sounds horrible to me.

 

Are you trolling, or being a reactionary moron?

 

Neither.

 

Mark Olson escribió:

You must be som kind of idiot septic.

I've finally educated the dueño of my local bar that "crisps" are what one
sees in a bag whilst "chips" (french fries to the idiot septics) are what he
puts on a plate with everything else.

 

Mark Olson escribió:

The fucking what?