Thursday, March 01, 2007

And How Do You Spell Jabotinsky?

Vladimir (Ze'ev) Jabotinsky had problems with his name.

In the British army during World War I, his fellow Christian officers nicknamed him, "jug-o'-whiskey". The Russain 'Zh' is written in Hebrew with an apostrophe so - 'ז.

Nevertheless, for about a hundred years now, the standardized spelling in English is Jabotinsky.

So, while at an academic conference at Bar Ilan University yesterday, I noticed a street named after him but the spelling was odd.

Thus:-



A bit odd? Very odd.

This sign has it right:-



The problem, though, is that the wrongly spelled sign is within 30 feet of the properly spelled street sign. See the two of them lined up:-



Nice going, Ramat Gan Municipality.

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