In his debate with Sarah Palin on Thursday (which failed to meet the Dan Quayle test), Joe Biden talked about the “Bosniaks” not “Bosnians”. Republican commentators jumped on this, arguing that it was a gaffe comparable to, er… well, George Bush’s grasp of foreign terminology springs to mind, but whatever.
Except “Bosniak” is the correct name for the majority population in Bosnia and Herzegovina. This non-gaffe fizzled out in the blogosphere extremely quickly.
The New York Times was not, however, up-to-speed. Today, it published an otherwise positive opinion piece on Biden by Charles M. Blow that said that his use of “Bosniac” (sic) was “hysterical”. I was about to expose this foolishness, but find that the sentence has been cut from the online version, and this added:
An earlier version of this column misspelled an ethnic term for Muslims in Bosnia and Herzegovina, and incorrectly claimed that Senator Joseph R. Biden Jr. had made a mistake in using it. The correct spelling is Bosniak, not Bosniac, and Mr. Biden’s usage was correct.
Oh well, that’s that fixed. No mention of Mr. Blow’s hysteria though. I’m reminded of the old joke about liberals agonizing during the Balkan wars of the 1990s. “We need to do something for the Bosnians,” one cries. “Forget the Bosnians,” a superior moralist replies. “We’re not even talking about the Herzogs.”
