not sure if anyone noticed this... media in the states (not sure about the world) have started referring osama bin laden as "bin laden" instead of "osama" following the rise of obama from party nominee to president-elect and in the near future, president.
interestingly, while this switch from first name to last name (surname) for osama may minimize the likelihood for confusing the two, it may possibly create confusions for their immigration people when it comes to clearing people whose fathers are called laden. for that matter, i personally think americans can be quite bad when it comes to understanding how names are used in different cultures. i am aware that for sometime after 911, people with a "bin" in their name were given special attention when clearing customs in the united states. i even have a chinese friend who was detained and questioned cos he was mistaken to be a muslim as the second character of his chinese name is "bin". you know, the hanyu pinyin translation thing... and when you move his surname to the back, his name looks exactly like that of a muslim name... xxx bin yyy. poor chap. he was so traumatised by the whole process. and it was no fault of his!
:-)
interestingly, while this switch from first name to last name (surname) for osama may minimize the likelihood for confusing the two, it may possibly create confusions for their immigration people when it comes to clearing people whose fathers are called laden. for that matter, i personally think americans can be quite bad when it comes to understanding how names are used in different cultures. i am aware that for sometime after 911, people with a "bin" in their name were given special attention when clearing customs in the united states. i even have a chinese friend who was detained and questioned cos he was mistaken to be a muslim as the second character of his chinese name is "bin". you know, the hanyu pinyin translation thing... and when you move his surname to the back, his name looks exactly like that of a muslim name... xxx bin yyy. poor chap. he was so traumatised by the whole process. and it was no fault of his!
:-)
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