Posted on 09/13/2010 1:34:04 PM PDT by paterfamilias
Is it Muslim or Moslem?
When Baby Boomers were children it was Moslem. The American Heritage Dictionary (1992) noted, "Moslem is the form predominantly preferred in journalism and popular usage. Muslim is preferred by scholars and by English-speaking adherents of Islam." No more. Now, almost everybody uses Muslim.
According to the Center for Nonproliferation Studies, "Moslem and Muslim are basically two different spellings for the same word." But the seemingly arbitrary choice of spellings is a sensitive subject for many followers of Islam. Whereas for most English speakers, the two words are synonymous in meaning, the Arabic roots of the two words are very different. A Muslim in Arabic means "one who gives himself to God," and is by definition, someone who adheres to Islam. By contrast, a Moslem in Arabic means "one who is evil and unjust" when the word is pronounced, as it is in English, Mozlem with a z.
For others, this spelling differentiation is merely a linguistic matter, with the two spellings a result of variation in transliteration methods. Both Moslem and Muslim are used as nouns. But some writers use Moslem when the word is employed as an adjective.
Journalists switched to Muslim from Moslem in recent years under pressure from Islamic groups. But the use of the word Moslem has not entirely ceased. Established institutions which used the older form of the name have been reluctant to change. The American Moslem Foundation is still the American Moslem Foundation (much as the NAACP is still the NAACP--the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People). The journal The Moslem World--published by the Hartford Seminary in Connecticut--is still The Moslem World.
(References at link)
Anyone who pronounces “Moslem” with a “Z” can just as well pronounce “Muslim” with a “Z”.
I think it’s more an issue of how it’s written than how it is said.
It was always “Moslem” when I grew up and in historical works such as Gibbons’ Decline and Fall.
I became aware of this controversey right here when Freepers corrected me for using “Moslem”. In my mind, Moslem is a much more attractive spelling.
All this blanket hatred of Moslems is absurd, btw, imho.
No it isn't. There's no "H" in Muslim.
And yet Germany is still Germany, and not Deutschland.
I’m a tard.
Good grief..what doesn’t offend these people these days? They act like Obama(who is offended by everything)...LOL!!
Moselm it is for me too from now on.
“No it isn’t. There’s no “H” in Muslim.”
It’s taqqiya. It’s really there.
“I’M SLUM” is the only real anagram of “muslim.”
Huh? The answer is simple. Moslem is an incorrect phonetic spelling of the word مُسْلِم . There is no 'o' vowel in Arabic. The dumma, the thing that looks a comma, sounds closest to 'u' (unicorn) sound in English.
There are only 3 short vowels in Arabic. Fatha sounds like short 'a', Kasra sounds like short 'i', and Dumma.
Barack Obama
-anagram-
ARAB BACK MAO
From now on, I will be calling them Moslems. Ot Mohammedans, which is really what they are. Lawrence Eagleburger always calls them Mohammedans.. followers of Mohammed.
Personally I say call ‘em what you will, but I wanna hear is as past tense.
I did notice that many of our founding fathers and early leaders used the name Mahomet in their writings when referring to Mohammed.
Go with Mozlem to be sure.
God, I love this blog! Thanks for setting me straight. But “raghead” still works for me.
Because if you say RH, people get offended.
You had me until the last one... "Mumbai" isn't the Hindi pronounciation of "Bombay" -- it's a different name. The local authoriities actually renamed the City, because "Bombay" is a Portuguese term and the local ruling Hindu Nationalist Party wanted to replace the colonial name with a new Hindi name that sounded somewhat similar. So they invented "Mumbai."
Everything else you mentioned -- Peking/Beijing, Porto/Puerto Rico, Pakistan and Chile are all about pronounciation/spelling of agreed upon names.
OK!
(Does mean can shred a Corrianne? When I tried to burn one from our set of dishes last night, the pot just kinda turned got hot and turned black and sooty .... Boy, was my wife pissed!)
We are also now being told by the media that it is “qu’ran”, not “quran” or “koran”.
Meanwhile we still haven’t seen Obama’s birth certificate, baptism certificate, school transcripts...
The media also got everyone to start referring to Republican victories as “RED STATE” when formerly they had been identified as BLUE on the election night maps.
I loathe the MSM.
Members of the Mohammedan Death Cult, are best called Mohammedans.
That is the word that use for my T-shirts.
Because muzscum is controversial?
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