With the long-time leader of Libya apparently taking precarious refuge in Algeria, his time in the limelight of Western media is nearing its end. When he's captured and then again as legal proceedings of some form progress against him (and the nature of those proceedings is contingent upon who ends up nabbing him), he'll momentarily be back in the news, but the peak of his media fame is surely in the past.
As a sendoff, I decided to delve into the very overdone subject of the romanized spelling of his name. There are several pieces that categorize the various spellings different media outlets have adopted over the years, but it's a little difficult to quantify New York Times does it this way, Fox News does it this way. So, here is a graph that tracks the six most common spellings of his surname in books published in the US over the last four decades (click on the image to enlarge it):
1) Qaddafi
2) Gaddafi
3) Qadhafi
4) Gadhafi
As a sendoff, I decided to delve into the very overdone subject of the romanized spelling of his name. There are several pieces that categorize the various spellings different media outlets have adopted over the years, but it's a little difficult to quantify New York Times does it this way, Fox News does it this way. So, here is a graph that tracks the six most common spellings of his surname in books published in the US over the last four decades (click on the image to enlarge it):
1) Qaddafi
2) Gaddafi
3) Qadhafi
4) Gadhafi
5) Kadafi (which appears to me the most phonetically intuitive spelling)
6) Gathafi
"Qaddafi" is the variant used most commonly by the federal government, while news media generally prefer to use "G" rather than "Q" to begin the name (probably because some number of English majors end up as journalists, and failing to follow a "Q" up with an "A" is perceived by them to be of poor form!).
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