QUAD...THAT IS, GADD...OR KHJAD...FORGET IT; WE'LL CALL HIM COLONEL

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00965R000605740032-8
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: May 18, 2012
• Sequence Number: 32
• Publication Date: January 13, 1986
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Declassified in Part -Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/05/18 :CIA-RDP90-009658000605740032-8
ART~~L~ Ai'Y~Frt1CU 13 January 1986
Quad ... That Is, Gadd ... or Khj ad ...
forget It; We'll Call Him Colonel
By VALIDA SELLExS doesn't consider the matter open to ques-
SCafJRepOTLeTOJTHEWALLSTREETJOURNAL tion. "Gaddafi! That's OUr style," She
If a certain Libyan colonel's name says. "It's as simple as that."
wasn't already a household word in Amer?
ica, President Reagan certainly made it so
last week. In his nationally televised news
conference, Mr. Reagan characterized
Libya's strong man as "a pariah," "a bar?
barian" and "flaky."
But how is his name spelled? Time
magazine spells it "Gaddafi." The New
York Times and the Washington Post spell
it "Qaddafi." The Wall Street Journal
spells it "Qadhafi." The Chicago Tribune,
Philadelphia Inquirer-and USA Today spell
it "Khadafy."
The colonel's name is an Arabic name,
so the confusion comes in translating it to
English. Thus the spelling is purely pho-
netic, and that leaves room for discre-
tion.
The CIA's Version
An editor on the forei desk of this
newspaper sticks up or ad a i. He
ontends it's "the official U.S. government
$pel mg ecause its eversion use m a
Central Intelli ence Agency. directory.
A spokesman rom t e ew or imes
foreign staff admits that, with so many
variations, a reader can get stumped. "But
you can usually get it if you say it out loud
just like it's spelled-however that is."
But if that's true, would the correct.pro-
nunciation be GAH-DAH-FEE, as in the
oral rendering of Time's spelling? A
spokesman for the magazine's foreign staff
The Chicago Tribune, which spells it
"Khadafy," defends its version as the style
of the Associated Press. A Tribune foreign
editor acknowledges that spellings begin-
ningwith "Q" are probably truer to Arabic
phonetically. "But Khadafy looks so funny
when it's spelled Qaddafi because we
aren't. used to seeing `q' without `u,' "she
says.
AP's Defense
Ed Butler, the AP's deputy foreign edi-
tor, has no qualms about disagreeing with
the New York Times and others. "We use
a Kh-sound. It's more to our liking," he
says. "It all depends on which Arabic dia-
lect you translate from."
A Philadelphia Inquirer foreign editor
says the "correct" spelling of Khadafy is
"no burning concern" since there are so
many. "If there were only one or two, I
would wonder more about which we should
use," he says, "but I think we're okay as
long as we make it clear who we're talking
about."
In all, there, are believed to be about 20
English spellings of the Libyan leader's
last name. But even news publications that
spell the last name the same way offer dif-
ferent versions of the first name. At least
those are. fewer. Usually it's "Muammar"
or "Moammar" or "Muammar el." Take
your pick.
Declassified in Part -Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/05/18 :CIA-RDP90-009658000605740032-8