I have read many news reports of the mideast conflict and I have been wondering why some people spell Hezbolla in many variations such as Hizbolla, Hizbulla, Hezbollah, etc... It's reminicient of post 9/11 when we saw Osama Bin Laden, Usama Bin Laden, Ben Laden... etc... Is there a consensus? Are there editors who proof these stories? Is there a conspiracy to keep people confused?
2006-08-22 05:55:52 · 6 answers · asked by cameron m 1 in News & Events ➔ Media & Journalism
Forget the conspiracy theory. There is no point to that.
There has ALWAYS been a problem with the spelling of foreign names, particularly with names spoken in languages where the Roman alphabet is not used.
In Iran, for example, Khomeni is not spelled that way. It is spelled in Farsi. There is no "K," or "O," or any such letters. It is an entirely different writing system. The best that news agencies can do is try a phonetic spelling. Sometimes this is just an approximation. There is no international "judge" determining which spelling is correct.
You have seen examples of Chinese writing? What is the proper English spelling of these characters? At best, we can only make some guesses.
Look at some of these names: Wong, Wang, Hong, Hoang, Wan. These all come from the same root name, but in trying to write thise using our alphabet has resulted in many variations.
When Osama bin Laden signs his name, he doesn't use our alphabet.
2006-08-22 06:09:58 · answer #1 · answered by Vince M 7 · 0⤊ 0⤋
out of your link: i do no longer understand the cost. we don't communicate to the cost. We needless to say have some help functionality for presidential trip. we don't communicate to that intimately for cover reasons. yet i visit take the liberty this time of disregarding as unquestionably absurd this concept that someway we've been deploying 10 p.c. of the army -- some 34 ships and an airplane service -- in help of the president's trip to Asia. that is in basic terms comical. no longer something on the brink of that is being completed. He by no ability talked approximately the cost, all he talked to became into the certainty that 10% of the army does not be deployed to assist that. however the item by no ability reported how many ships there would be, and it reported that the Indian military and Coast take care of and ships from the U. S. military will patrol India's waters. that doesn't make 10%. They, the pentagon or the white homestead won't tell the predicted expenses of the visit trip in any respect.
2016-12-17 15:21:51 · answer #2 · answered by ? 4 · 0⤊ 0⤋
This isn't a mistake on the part of news services... There simply isn't consensus within the academic community on how best to transliterate from Arabic to English... 'Osama bin Laden' is the most commonly used, as is 'Hezbollah' - but that does not make them correct (or indeed incorrect)... See more below...
2006-08-22 06:15:19 · answer #3 · answered by 8Dave 5 · 0⤊ 0⤋
This drives me insane. It's not just names and places - I've found that bad spelling is an unfortunate reality of online news. I have yet to read a story online - even from CNN, MSNBC, other major news outlets - that didn't have a few errors. They focus on getting things out quickly without going through a proofreader like the old days of paper news.
And Yahoo Answers isn't exactly a championship spelling bee either. But it's nice to know I'm not alone. Halve a nice day.
2006-08-22 06:05:15 · answer #4 · answered by LisaT 5 · 0⤊ 0⤋
They can't get the content of the news right either! They are run by mediocre producers more interested on ratings than of their mission to inform objectively.
2006-08-22 06:04:54 · answer #5 · answered by Lumas 4 · 0⤊ 1⤋
I know, it's annoying. Yahoo is actually pretty bad with that. They need to fire their editors.
2006-08-22 06:02:31 · answer #6 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 1⤋