Why does Faux call Osama "Usama"?

[mot78]

The only time I've ever seen his name spelled like that was on an FBI poster right after 9/11. I don't think this has to do with their bias, but why do they spell his name like that?

[krkaufman]

1. And why do some sources just say "Qaeda"? n/t

[bigwillq]

2. I've seen it spelt like that many times and I've heard it pronounced

like that tooo

[mohinoaklawnillinois]

3. Not that I watch Faux too often,

but I noticed that as well.

[MercutioATC]

4. I believe it's an either/or thing. The administration's abbreviation for

him has always been "UBL", I believe.

[Bertha Venation]

5. I think it's the correct spelling

of his name as translated from Arabic.

I don't know the exact facts but I think that's it. I don't mind if someone wants to relieve me of my ignorance. Just be gentle.

[JCMach1]

29. Not a spelling issue... the letters only approximate the Arabic

sound.

Therefore, I say Osama you say Usama...

[DuctapeFatwa]

6. There's no standard official transliteration of Arabic like Chinese pinyin

Mohammed can be spelled in English 4 different ways! The name Osama or Usama is pretty common, and you see it spelled both ways lots of places, sometimes with 2 "m"s, so I guess that makes 4 different ways for it too. :)

[Aidoneus]

26. or 2 "s"s, or an H at the beginning or end..

Hussamah, Ussamah, Usamah, Usama, Ossamah, Osamah, Osama.. I've seen it spelled any of these ways in reference to various people with the name. It is most inconsiderate of those Arabs to have a language script that isn't exactly like Latin.

[buff2]

7. Since repukes think they own it.......

They put USA in everything.

[VLC98]

8. Weasel Rumsfeld calls him Usama..

and I heard him refer to him as UBL today.

[philosophie_en_rose]

9. It's because he makes them orgasmic.*

Ooooh-sama.



*Kidding on the square.

[jmowreader]

10. There are 17 officially-recognized Arabic transliteration systems

Bin Laden's got an easy one--only four choices, Osama, Osamma, Usama and Usamma.

Moammar Khaddafi's name is much more fun; I've seen at least ten different transliterations of that name. Some of them even have an H in them.

[lastknowngood]

11. Stupid is as stupid dose

n/t

[9215]

18. "dose" or does......you moran......

((just kidding))

[eaprez]

12. Because

They use the same dictionary Bush got his pronounciation of NUKE-U-LAR from and where Bush Sr got his prounounciation of SAD-DAM from. Dan Quayle used it as a spelling primer.

[tridim]

13. It's very similar to O'Reilly

They don't want their brilliant viewers to mistake O'Reilly for O'sama, like they apparently mistook Franken's book for a television "news" channel.

[smirkymonkey]

25. LOL - Good One!

The only difference is that Orielly's terrorism occurs frequently, consistently and nationwide. Both appear to be state sanctioned, however. :)

[kalian]

14. Because we created him....registered trademark: "USAma"

;)

[maggrwaggr]

15. the same reason they refer to Iran as "Our enemy, Iran..."

propaganda. Same reason Poppy Bush pronounced Saddam's name the way he did.

Anybody else catch that "our enemy, Iran" bit?

I heard Greta Van Slutstern say that very casually one day, introing a story about Iran

[Malikshah]

16. Actually, there is a recognized standard in academia

There's a transliteration style that most academics used based upon the Encyclopaedia of Islam--there are some changes, however j vs. dj etc.

Usama is the most orthographically correction IMHO as there is no "O" in Arabic

There's a long a (a w/ a line over it)
Long i (same as long a)
Long u ( you get the picture)

Arabic is written w/o "vocalization" the shorter forms of the long a, i, u are implied/known, etc.

Thus Muhammad is the more correct spelling as opposed to Mohammed etc. at least in academic circles...

Of course folks will disagree, but...

Another one that get's to me, though is Koran vs. Qur'an. Oh well.

BTW--my name is based on my studies (hence my academic rant)


OH--almost forgot... it's al-Qa'ida (al-Qa--glottal stop--ida)
Not al-qayda (as it's pronounced...always gets to me) al-Qa'ida means something ("foundation") al-qayda/al-qaeda etc (w/ dipthong) doesn't (at least w/ the dictionary I'm using.)

[DuctapeFatwa]

17. Thanks jmowreader and Malikshah! I wish people would agree on one

If academia has managed to do so, that is something. Maybe the rest of the world can be persuaded to follow suit, it sure would make it easier on everybody :)

[9215]

19. It is part of their subliminable

propoganda. Usama, as in ewwh, yucky, etc. I think that's it, they want people to think of Usama as yecky, ewwhy. :bounce:

[bucknaked]

20. Same reason they say "Homicide Bombers"

It's this administration's (the government's) term for identifing that piece of shit, so they, of course, follow suit.

[JohnOneillsMemory]

21. Notice, you can't spell 'Usama' without U.S. How appropriate. n/t

[9215]

22. LOL! Nice one.

I'd like to see the look on O'liar,liarpants-on-fire-Reilly if somebody said this to him. :bounce:

[LeahMira]

23. Different alphabet and different sounds

Why does Faux call Osama "Usama"

There are sounds in other languages that we don't have in English. Those sounds are represented by letters that may or may not correspond to letters and sounds in English.

In Hebrew we have a letter that represents the first sound in the name of the holiday that comes in December. That sound is the sound you hear at the end of "Bach" when it's pronounced by a German speaker. It's not a "k" and it's not an "h" sound exactly. In English there is no letter combination or single letter that represents that sound because we don't have that sound in the English language. So, as a consequence, you see the name of that December holiday spelled as Hannukah, Channukah, Hanukkah, and all sorts of variations thereof.

Arabic being sort of a cousin to Hebrew, I suspect the difficulty lies in the fact that the alphabets and sounds are different from the ones in English.

We do have a letter in Hebrew that's interesting in relation to this question. By itself, it is pronounced like the letter "v" in English. But when it has a little dot above it, it is pronounced like a long "o" and when the little dot is placed to the left of the letter it is pronounced like "oo" in "moon." To make it all even more confusing, the little dot is not even written in most Hebrew newspapers, books, or even in the Torah scrolls. People who speak Hebrew somehow just know the words and sort of automatically use the correct pronunciation. Darned if I know how they do it! I suppose it's sort of like the way we English speakers just know how to pronounce "read" or "lead" when we see it in a sentence. But you can probably see how there can come to be several different pronunciations for bin Laden's first name. Since I don't know Arabic, though, I have no idea which pronunciation is technically the correct one.

[PsychoDad]

24. Because you can't have Usama without USA (nt)

[banana republican]

27. You say Usama; I say Osoma

You say Potatoe;
I say Potato.

You say Tomatoe;
I say tomato...

[SoCalDem]

28. I've said it before, and I'll say it again..

Every time I look at Faux, I cannot help but think that somewhere in America, a Dairy Queen is missing all its employees..:)

They are all so hopelessly tacky and common..in the worst sense of the words..

They aim to be "jist like us'ns out here in tv-land", and they just end up looking dumb and plastic:)