Some boobs are complaining about local weather stations using the term "haboob" to refer to our not-so-infrequent dust storms. Apparently they are objecting to the use of words derived from Arabic. Where such are objecting to the incorporation of Arabic words into English, perhaps a list of a few others would be useful, you know, to help focus their rage!
Admiral, adobe, albacore, albatross, alcove, algebra (You know, Arabs invented it. So must we eliminate this from high school studies?), alfalfa, algorithm, alma (we'll need to rename the street I drive daily.), amber (Oh beautiful for ‘yellow' waives of grain!), arsenal (Better not tell Khadaffi that the U.S. can no longer be the ‘arsenal' of democracy.), azure (Forget those ‘blue' skies, too.). We stop at "A." The list becomes too long. "Monsoon" appears to be an Indian term. Must we give up our annual rainy season, too?
Dale Whiting, Chandler
Tigere posted at 7:13 am on Fri, Jul 22, 2011.
Dear Dale - it may come as a surprise to you but there are several generations of southwestern citizens who were here long before you arrived who have never experienced a "haboob". They have however experienced a "Mexican Monsoon" as they did recently which apparently astounded the newbie haboob-ie community. In fact if you you look around you will see a large presence of Mexican influence from which our term derives. ( Not a lot of Saharan Arabs from which your term derives.) For those of us who have lived through summer after summer of monsoons, many as remarkable if not more so as this most recent storm, the term to which you refer makes no sense.
There was a haboob in Arizona at that time though, Janet Napolitano was in Nogales.
Leon Ceniceros posted at 8:22 am on Fri, Jul 22, 2011.
Somehow, I don't think that during the hundreds and hundreds of years of "Spanish" and "Mexican" rule that the term ....MONSOON....was used to describe Summer downpours.
They were probably refered to as....RELAMPAGO'S.....or.....DILUVIO'S.....but.....MONSOON = I don't think so.
I guess because of our....."AMERICA IS NOT A CHRISTIAN NATION" PRESIDENT, BARACK HUSSEIN OBAMA......all things MUSLIM, ISLAMIC and ARABIC....are all the ...VOGUE....witht the ..........LIBERALS....PROGRESSIVES...AND DEMOCRATS.
I REMEMBER, GROWING UP IN THE 1950'S AND HEARING THE SUMMER STORMS OF THE SOUTHWEST BEING REFERED TO AS ...SIROCCO'S (ACTUALLY FROM THE GREEK WORK = SIROKOS).....BUT THAT JUST SHOWS YOU WHAT AN OLD CODGER.....I AM........LOL.
I GUESS NEXT....THESE SAME ....LIBERALS....PROGRESSIVES AND DEMOCRATS WILL BE CALLING.........ILLEGAL ALIENS FROM MEXICO AND POINTS SOUTH...............EFENDI'S....ANOTHER ARABIC WORD.
IN A 2007, NEW YORK TIMES INTERVIEW...SENATOR BARACK HUSSEIN OBAMA RECITED THE MUSLIM CALL TO PRAYER BY HEART IN PERFECT ARABIC AND WENT ON TO SAY THAT IT WAS THE....."PRETTIEST SOUND ON EARTH". HE REPEATEDLY REFERS TO THE KORAN AS THE ....."HOLY" KORAN.......HAVE ANY OF YOU EVER HEARD PRESIDENT BARACK HUSSEIN OBAMA REFER TO THE BIBLE AS THE..........."HOLY"....BIBLE ???
JSBeals posted at 9:39 am on Fri, Jul 22, 2011.
Leon, if you want an end result on anything, you can probably back it up with quotes, misquotes, or edited quotes. If you want the end result which suggests that Obama is secretly a Muslim, I am sure you can convince yourself of such nonsense.
“According to Muslim teachings, God first revealed His word in the Holy Qur'an to the prophet, Muhammad, during the month of Ramadan. That word has guided billions of believers across the centuries, and those believers built a culture of learning and literature and science. All the world continues to benefit from this faith and its achievements."
“The Islam that we know is a faith devoted to the worship of one God, as revealed through The Holy Qur'an. It teaches the value and the importance of charity, mercy, and peace."
"Islam brings hope and comfort to millions of people in my country, and to more than a billion people worldwide. Ramadan is also an occasion to remember that Islam gave birth to a rich civilization of learning that has benefited mankind."
Those quotes above were from George W. Bush on 11/15/01, 11/19/01,and 12/4/2002. He must be Muslim, right? Oh, except he isn’t the right color so those quotes and many more similar quotes are ignored.
“Jesus Christ died for my sins, and that I am redeemed through him. That is a source of strength and sustenance on a daily basis. Yes, I know that I don’t walk alone. And I know that if I can get myself out of the way, that I can maybe carry out in some small way what he intends. And it means that those sins that I have on a fairly regular basis, hopefully will be washed away.”
The above quote was from Obama in an interview with Rick Warren, but anything attributed to Obama's Christian faith is ignored by some.
To answer your last question, yes, Obama has stated the “Holy” Bible.
Let's just call it a summer dust storm.
Accuracy posted at 10:12 am on Fri, Jul 22, 2011.
'Haboob' has a lot of Arabic comp
Use of the term “haboob” is what thick dust storms or sandstorms have long been called in the deserts of North Africa and Arabia or on the plains of India.
But the massive dust storm that swept through northwest Phoenix has stirred up more.
The Arizona Republic received a lot of letters because of the word ''haboob'' that was being used by TV commentators; "Don't call our dust storms haboobs", “Word 'haboob' is just plain divisive”, and “Pioneers would've hated 'haboob'”.
“Arizonans up in arms over use of ‘haboob’ in local weather reports," by Chris Lehmann | The Lookout
http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/lookout/arizonans-arms-over-haboob-local-weather-reports-141147759.html
Cerulean posted at 11:16 am on Fri, Jul 22, 2011.
‘Haboob’ has so much more character, and actually describes the recent dust storm experienced here in the valley better than ‘dust storm’ or ‘monsoon’. A haboob is an intense dust storm that is all about dirt – no rain. Monsoons are characterized by wind followed by heavy rain; these are more typical of summer storms in southern Arizona.
Leon,
You are correct, if I had ever heard this call to prayer that President Obama can recite in Arabic I too might think it sounds beautiful to my sensibilities. I am disappointed to know that the Bible is the only word you consider worthwhile.
Rich posted at 3:03 pm on Fri, Jul 22, 2011.
"There was a desert wind blowing that night. It was one of those hot dry Santa Anas that come down through the mountain passes and curl your hair and make your nerves jump and your skin itch. On nights like that every booze party ends in a fight. Meek little wives feel the edge of the carving knife and study their husbands' necks. Anything can happen. You can even get a full glass of beer at a cocktail lounge." - Raymond Chandler "Red Wind"
You could just as easily import from California as Araby, of course the talking heads could also just call it a 'dust storm.' In the '50s here it was called a 'Siroccco' after the African wind and probably the Bogart movie. Seeing as our kids, at least according to the test scores, don't comprehend English well, it doesn't really matter much, does it?
k33j88 posted at 2:50 am on Sat, Jul 23, 2011.
At least Dale is consistent with the liberal playbook-----race card, victim card, personal attack.
Dale Whiting posted at 7:57 am on Sat, Jul 23, 2011.
This point I made humerously [except for those many above who lack any humor whatsoever] is that we decry modern Arabic terms creaping into our language while not recognizing the hundreds if not thousands which have proceeded it. "Haboob" is the world wide recognized term for a dust storm working on a wide spread front. They often occur as the immediate precursor to a seasonal change in wind patters leading up to a rainy season, i.e. a Monsoon, another world wide recognized metrological term. Would we be so ignorant as to spurn world renoun terms? Apparently some 'boobs" would.
More food for thought. What intiger resultes from the equasion 4 - 4? The response is another Arabic term, zero! So between "adrimal" and "zero," A to Z we have a lot to credit to Arabic schollars. In fact, the equasion itself is Arabic. Otherwise it would have had to have been expressed as IV - IV and there would no be an answer!
The now unfamiliar Roman numerals, I, V, C, L, C, D, M, are based on the fact that we have five fingers on each hand, hardly a sophisticated concept. Borrowing from the Indian subcontinent with which they traded, Arabs developed Arabic numerals and a decimal place system of counting which has no bounds. In addition to having the concept of zero, it has both negative numbers and positive numbers, in both directions reaching out to infinity. Arabs were the first truely great mathmatical thinkers. Allah be praised! [Though most of this work preceded the time of Mohamud.]
Dale Whiting posted at 8:10 am on Sat, Jul 23, 2011.
"The Monsoon" is the annual change in wind direction over the Indian Ocean which brings rain onto the south of the Indian Subcontinent, then northward to the Himalays. Where such annual wind changes are harbingers of a rainy season, even one as limited as our own, it is called a Monsoon.
Our annual wind change is caused when a summer High locates itself for an extended period of time over the "four corners" area. Clockwise circulating winds bring up moisture from the Gulf of Mexico, "Montezuma be praised," into Arizona, higher humidity working its way northward from Rocky Point, to Tucson, and finally to Phoenix and most extensively the "Rim Country." Average annual rain fall on the Rim is upwards of 30 inches. That's a "III" in the "X's" place and a "V-V" in the "I's" place! But for this rain fall, there would be no need for the extensive irrigation canal system we have in place and Prescott would still be Arizona's captial! Nor would we have a forest to burn!
Global warming will cause changes to the jet stream which will relocate those summer highs and could bring an end to our summer monsoon. "The Koch Brothers be praised!"
Dale Whiting posted at 8:19 am on Sat, Jul 23, 2011.
Tigere,
My ancestors first experienced a Haboob in Arizona in 1888. How far do you go back?
RationalHuman posted at 3:39 pm on Sat, Jul 23, 2011.
'Arabs were the first truely great mathmatical thinkers. Allah be praised!'
You might want to reconsider where your praise is going...with the advent of Allah worship came the downfall of the great Arab scientific advances. You know, the same thing Christianity did to Rome and Europe (google Dark Ages).
"My ancestors first experienced a Haboob in Arizona in 1888"
I've lived here almost 50 years, Dale...my question is, why the sudden shift to "haboob"? I don't care WHERE the term comes from, I just want to know why it was just recently used instead of Monsoon or Dust Storm (the terms used for at least the last 40 years).
Here's a thought - did the media deliberately choose this term in order to spark a non-issue from which they could then profit?
Dale Whiting posted at 9:30 pm on Sat, Jul 23, 2011.
RationalHuman,
Been here since 1960 or so, you say! I can recall hearing the term "Haboob" used in TV weather reports as far back as 1982 when I moved back after spending about 9 years away for active duty and graduate schooling. And in 1977 when I was teasing a Captain in the US Army Intelligence Corp over one of his Ft. Huachuca photographs, I mentioned the Monsoon. He was quite familiar with the term and did not catch on to my tease him with use of the term. I speculate that no one paid much attention to using the term Haboob until now. Far too much Islamophopia I suspect. Too many Neo-cons are blaming our country's mismanagement on Islam when we ought to be thankful for Arab culture down through these many years.
And the decline in those scientific advances preceded Mohamud's advance in the middle east. But the Moors in western North Africa still introduced science and culture into Spain, arguably seeding the Renaissance. It was the conquering of the Moors in Spain which lead to the persecution of non-Christians, especially Jews, by Roman Catholic inquisitions. Over the centuries Jews have had it much better off under Muslims than under Christians.
Dale Whiting posted at 9:38 pm on Sat, Jul 23, 2011.
Accuracy,
Thanks for the URL on that article. It reads
"In a sense, though, "haboob" has already played a role in the Arizona's linguistic past. As Royal Norman, a meteorologist with Phoenix news station 3, had explained prior to the recent wave of haboob-baiting, weather correspondents in the region have been making use of the term since the early 1970s. It all began, he recalls, with a researcher in Phoenix named Dr. Sherwood Idso, who published a paper characterizing a 1972 storm as a haboob. Norman notes that Idso also referred to other terms for the violent winds stirring up great walls of sand, including "chubasco" and "Sonoran storm" (both of which share Mexican and Spanish derivations)."
I would appear that Haboob came into use in Arizona while I was on active duty in the Middle East. How co-incidental! I did not learn about it until 1981!