Published online by Cambridge University Press: 15 March 2011
A glance at the List of Members of this Society shows a number of Oriental names from every country between the Danube and the Pacific, which is, in itself, a matter for congratulation. A second will suggest a doubt as to the proper style in which to address one or two of their owners; and a detailed examination is enough, like Colonel Bowie's tooth-pick, “to give a timid man the colic.” The fact is, that we have not yet acquired a system by which we can index these names so as to know at a glance the proper written or spoken address of an Oriental.
1 The Musalman rendering of this idea would have been Abd u'l Rasul or Abd e'n Nabi.