"Hello, my name is Mohamed"
Perhaps some of you remember a television game show called "To Tell the Truth." It's a classic from the golden age of television, recently remade and last seen, as I recall, on Oxygen.

If you don't remember it, there were three contestants, one of whom gives his right name and occupation. The other two give the same name and occupation. The celebrity panel, through a short round of questioning, has to figure out who's telling the truth: The contestants' prize money depends on how many panelists they fool.

This story reminds me of that:

Spelling slows war on terror
WASHINGTON -- As U.S. intelligence and law enforcement agencies try to prevent the next terrorist attack, they have a basic problem to solve: how to spell the enemy's name.
Computerized databases at the FBI, CIA, Immigration and Naturalization Service and other agencies bulge with lists of suspected terrorists. Some of the names identify actual terrorists. Others are aliases, misspellings, alternative spellings or misidentifications of putative bad guys. And without extensive fieldwork, there is no way to tell them apart.
...In the weeks after Sept. 11, Justice and Treasury officials compiled a list of two dozen alleged al-Qaeda operatives and financiers.
...A State Department official with knowledge of the episode said the list amounted to a bunch of nicknames, Arabic versions of mobster handles such as ''Vinny the Chin.''
There were also several named ''Mohammed al-Haji,'' not a family name but a term of honor indicating a person has made the Islamic pilgrimage to Mecca.
When the State Department passed on the list, the Saudis greeted the request with laughter. They said the ''names'' were of no help in finding terrorist bank accounts, the official said.

Laughter.

Laughter.

Yeah, I guess from the Saudi point of view this must be pretty funny.

I've been trying to turn this around in my head. Let's say I worked for the US State Department, and a foreign official handed me a list of names. "We got these names from incoming mail at the suspects' addresses. We need to track down these aliases. These people are responsible for, or connected to, the deaths of thousands."

The list says "Occupant", "Resident", "Home Owner" and "Undeliverable As Addressed".

Would I laugh? Would I laugh in the face of someone trying to apprehend murderers and prevent further violence, over a mistake that a native English speaker would not make?

Would you?