That make ya go 'hmmmmm'

[cyrano]

No time for a proper entry here. Just a passing note.
Most of the time, in news stories or in much public writing, a person is introduced with their full name or something very identifying, and thereafter on repeating occasions referred to using their last name or their title.
This is not so with 'President' Saddam Hussein. He's referred to by his first name, a chummy 'old school pals' sort of relationship with people. (Not counting President Bush's inability to pronounce his first name--obviously *not* an old school chum, really.)
I cannot imagine this is because people are concerned that he'd be confused with the King of Jordan accidentally.
Anyway. It's past my bedtime. Good night, moon. Good night, Saddam.

Comments

[cyranocyrano.livejournal.com]

Romanizing from Arabic (like from Hebrew, Russian or any of the eastern asian languages with 'one glyph equals one word' systems) appears to be kind of a politely agreed upon system, and can change over time or between different conventions. (See 'Hannuka' 'Tchaikovsky' and 'Peking' for some examples off the top of my head.) My guess is that it relates to that.

[cyranocyrano.livejournal.com]

Oh yeah. And Muammar Qadafi.

[miss-friday.livejournal.com]

Personal experience points to a general lack of a coherent or agreed upon system. Everytime I search a different database looking for information on Alexander "Glazonouv" I have to search six different time to account for different spellings.

Oh, and I once had a hell of a time trying to find Tchaikovsky's Nutcracker Suite score in the WSU Library because the score was so old, it was in the catalog under Ch.