16 Comments

1. charlotte:

Fantastic! Now, if we could only get the DNC, the UN and EU to echo his sentiments—

Dec 14, 2004 - 11:57 am 2. Word Guy:

Well, I’ve always preferred Qaddafi, but Big Mo himself uses Algathafi on his website: http://www.algathafi.org/

Of course, he spells “French” “Frensc,” so take his orthography cum grano salis.

All the confusion stems from the problems of transliterating his name, whether one uses Standard or North African pronunciations, etc. If you want a scholarly one, al-Qadh√¢ÔøΩf√ÆÔøΩ is probably as good as it gets. (Keeping in mind that that “dh” can be variously pronounced as “th” in “that,” “d” or “z” depending on the dialect.)

Too much nerdiness? Well, be sure to check out the Colonel’s impressive array of chapeaux.

Dec 14, 2004 - 12:03 pm 3. Word Guy:

I’m laughing at my own post. that mess should be al-Qadhafi with circumflexes over the last “a” and the “i.” It looked fine in the Preview, I swear!!!

Dec 14, 2004 - 12:04 pm 4. Charlie (Colorado):

— al-Qadh√¢ÔøΩf√ÆÔøΩ —

Suddenly I’m thinking of Al Capp and Walt Kelly.

Dec 14, 2004 - 12:32 pm 5. Peter G.:

I was waiting for the explanation on how to pronounce “¬¢”, which I’ve always understood to be “tse” or “swoo” depending on the use of the familiar. As for `¬Ωf,’ I think everyone knows that the correct way to pronounce this is to begin speaking the `f” sound but only go halfway.

Dec 14, 2004 - 12:56 pm 6. Todd Pearson:

Roger, thanks for the link!

Dec 14, 2004 - 12:59 pm 7. Wallace:

I always knew deep that the Qadhafi, Khadafi, al-Qadh√¢ÔøΩf√ÆÔøΩ, Ghaddafi’s …..those people, were good hearted souls even when they were planning terrorist attacks, mass murder and mayhem.

Dec 14, 2004 - 1:42 pm 8. Bruce W.:

This reminds me of the Seinfeld bit (mentioned in the documentary he made about his craft).

“I got into a cab the other day in New york. And I’m telling, the cab drivers name on the License included the chemical symbol for Boron.”

I nearly busted a gut.

Dec 14, 2004 - 2:26 pm 9. beautifulatrocities:

Here are all the ways to spell the Colonel’s name:

http://www.mcsweeneys.net/links/lists/ortho1.html

Dec 14, 2004 - 2:43 pm 10. Rick Ballard:

Roger,

If you write Mohammar Daffy everyone will still know to whom you refer. Maybe even more so than any “correct” spelling.

Dec 14, 2004 - 2:50 pm 11. 11A5S:

I’ve never understood the problem with transliterating Qadhafi’s name either. Just look at the first consonant: q, gh, and kh are all distinct sounds in Arabic. I guess two tranliterations of his name are logically possible (one from the Arabic written form and one from how it is pronounced in the Libyan dialect), but not the score or so one sees in the MSM.

But then all the above presupposes that the MSM would actually have folks who understand Arabic.

Dec 14, 2004 - 3:43 pm 12. Robert Schwartz:

In the 19th century a number of thinkers and writers propounded grand world views, the most famous was Karl Marx whose eponynous sysytem wreaked such enormous havoc in the 20th century. Surely the palme d’or should be awarded to Alexis de Tocqueville, who as a young man spent months traveling in the back woods of the infant republic of the United States of America, and returned to his native France to anounce that he had seen the future and that it was Democracy and it worked.

Unlike his 20th century imitators, the young Frenchman was correct. And his insight has been borne out over the more than 160 years since his book was published.

Dec 14, 2004 - 4:02 pm 13. Charlie (Colorado):

11A55, I’ve asked the same question, but it appears that (a) the initial phoneme in what’s his name’s name is dialectically different depending where you are, (b) there’s more than one competing romanization for Arabic, and since the choice is somewhat arbitrary, you are, as they say in linguistics, screwed.

Dec 14, 2004 - 6:16 pm 14. David Thomson:

Seif el-Islam el-Qaddafi is for real. I see little reason to doubt his sincerity. The young man is a sign of hope. We need to encourage more Arabs to study in the United States. It is outrageously stupid in making it so difficult for foreigners to obtain permission to do so. The fear of terrorism must be balanced with the need to westernized these individuals.

Dec 15, 2004 - 6:39 am 15. Bishop Hill:

Three Middle Eastern democracies (Afghanistan, Iran, Libya) in as many years could be quite a result for the war on terror. I wonder how the naysayers would explain that away.

Dec 15, 2004 - 8:00 am 16. Jim in Texas:

I lived in Libya in the mid-50s and loved it.

True, I was too young (10) to understand the politics but I remember the people and I liked them. And I rememebr there was a fairly large Jewish community there at the time. I guess they were eventually forced to leave.

My father would load up the family, spare gas and water, in the car and take off across Libya, generally west and stop at every cross road and explore.

We met and visted troglodytes, sheep and camel herders, I sifted the sands around roman ruins looking for coins (got a jar full still!) and I loved every second of the experience.

I would love to be able to re-visit someday

Dec 15, 2004 - 8:34 am

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