The thing that really bothers me about Obama

[magid]

There just shouldn't be a "c" in Barack. It goes into my brain as wrong every single time.

You wanted actual political content? There are lots of far more polished political pundits than I.

Comments

[thespisgeoff.livejournal.com]

What I hate is that I had an entire dissertation about how Arabic changes as it moves, first into North Africa, and then further down, as it absorbs local dialects and pronunciations, so what would be transliterated with a "ch" for chaf in Hebrew becomes a very definite "ck" in Africanized Arabic.

Then I remembered that I was taught Hebrew by a linguist who specialized in linguistic drift, and that nobody else cared. =)

[magid.livejournal.com]

The Hebrew barak (lightning) is a kuf, not a chet or a chaf, though (assuming it's the same cognate, which I have no clue about).
Still, interesting about the linguistic drift.

[thespisgeoff.livejournal.com]

Depending on the story, the Hebrew cognate's either barak or a baruch...so that's what I jumped onto. =)