The perils and pitfalls of translating from Arab to English.
Searching the BBC’s vast website for articles about Colonel Gadafy recently, I found just three mentions of his name.
As far as the BBC is concerned, this may be three times too many, since its approved spelling of the Libyan leader’s name is “Gaddafi”.
Here at the Guardian, on the other hand, our policy is to call him Gadafy – something we have succeeded in doing 325 times on our website.
For good measure, we have also managed to write Gaddafi 42 times, Gadafi eight times, and Gaddafy and Qadhafi twice each.
If given a completely free choice in the matter, I would much prefer to call him Colonel Qadhdhaafiy because that spelling, besides being more faithful to the original Arabic, accurately reflects the eccentricity of the man.
Not to mention the whole Usama/Osama debate …
(Via Prentiss)