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series_hybrid t1_j6hvfet wrote

Reply to comment by jrhooo in ELI5: How do they come up with names for countries in foreign languages? by bentobam

Thanks for taking the time to share all that. More recently, an infamous chap was called Osama...and near the end of his life, the news began calling him Usama.

Same with Khadaffi/Gudaffi

A small distinction, but it reflects the difficulty in translating a foreign name into english...

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jrhooo t1_j6iyueb wrote

Interesting note about that, because Arabic presents that same transliteration issue, a lot of U.S. units working in Middle Eastern countries had to pass out a standardized "you will spell names like this" guidance.

Because there was nothing keeping Soldier 1 from spelling a name Mohommad, and Soldier 2 from spelling it Muhammad, and then when the guy showed up on a base to look for a job, or clear security, whatever, Soldier 2 wouldn't be able to find "Muhammad" in the computer system, and the databases would be all messed up.

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series_hybrid t1_j6jgg3e wrote

I knew Google was going to be successful when I typed in a search for a word that I wasn't sure how to spell, and one option was "did you mean XYZ?"

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