Purpose?

Submitted by Fred Schlomka (Israel), Feb 16, 2007 at 13:25

I found it interesting that Mr. Pipes chose to devote his valuable blog real estate to a mundane advertisement for Hilton Hotels. Was it only to point out that the Hotel chain spelled the name of the holy city phonetically correct out of respect for the Arabic pronunciation? I haven't seen him display any similar concern for the Indian city of Mombai (formerly Bombay), which the Indian government has designated as the correct name in English. Why shouldn't the Saudi government do the same.

The vast majority of people in the Middle East refer to Jerusalem as Al-Quds, however few English speakers seem to be aware of this. It's considered polite to refer to ethnic groups, nationalities, and their locales by names which they themselves designate, rather than their English designations which are mostly relics from colonial times. Remember what happened to the word 'negro'?

Does it all matter? Not really.

Note: Opinions expressed in comments are those of the authors alone and not necessarily those of Daniel Pipes. Original writing only, please. Comments are screened and in some cases edited before posting. Reasoned disagreement is welcome but not comments that are scurrilous, off-topic, commercial, disparaging religions, or otherwise inappropriate. For complete regulations, see the "Guidelines for Reader Comments".