Wednesday, November 09, 2005

Why Riots in France Continue

To bring an end to the French intifada, we urge someone to declare himself the leader of the rioters. Until the French government knows to whom they must surrender, they will be powerless to respond.

Too bad Nobel Peace Prize Winner Yassir Arafat isn't available.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Dear SWNID,

I had thought that Arafat's first name was spelled "Yassir," as you have it, until I found it spelled "Yasir" in the American Heritage Dictionary. Then I went to the link you recommended and found it spelled "Yasser." When I realized, however, that the link you had sent me to was the official Nobel Prize web page, I figured I could discount that spelling. No one would expect a committee that was so clueless as to award a peace prize to Arafat to be able to spell his first name correctly. (I'm surprised they didn't give the 2002 award to "Jimy Carter.") So that leaves me with a dilemma. Do I side with you (and my initial inclinations) and spell it "Yassir" or with the American Heritage Dictionary and spell it "Yasir?"

--Spellbound in California

Jon A. Alfred E. Michael J. Wile E. SWNID said...

Yessir! You can spell it any way you want.

As signs in English found in Middle Eastern countries demonstrate, there seems to be little respect for orthography among our Arabic-speaking friends, at least as far as the Latin alphabet is concerned.

I'm confident that these are all acceptable variants.