I wish I knew where all this glitter was coming from. I am constantly covered in it.
Perhaps one of you should pay her a visit waiving the WikiLeaks Libya cables and ask how that concert for Gaddafi’s son went! If you do this, I will pay you in candy.
Wonderings…
Art by Nidal el Khairy
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,” 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.”
From the very helpful 2001 Slate article, How Do You Spell “Osama”?
