Gramer Girl here. I'm Minion Fogarty and you can think of me as your friendly guide to the English language.

We talk about writing, history, rules, and cool stuff. Today we'll talk about the word

Muslim. We'll go through the major annual updates to the AP Style Book, always fun,

and I have a family-led story that may have a Norwegian element and I'll need your help to figure it out.

We got this question from Dan Liebert about the word Muslim in the Facebook group a few weeks ago

and I wanted to get to it this week since we're in the middle of the Islamic holy month of Ramadan.

Dan wrote quote,

Is there any preference for Muslim spelled M-U-S-L-I-M versus Muslim spelled M-O-S-L-E-M?

I used them interchangeably and was wondering if one was the preferred usage when referring to people who

practice the Muslim faith. I can see that Facebook has the M-O-S-L-E-M spelling underlined in red.

Is that significant? Unquote?

Thanks Dan, it is significant. The M-O-S spelling used to be common, but today dictionaries

in style guides say to spell it M-U-S-L-I-M. For example, the Merriam Webster online dictionary says

Muslim with an O was quote,

formerly common, but now old fashioned, increasingly rare and sometimes offensive, unquote.

So, Muslim it is M-U-S-L-I-M. Facebook was doing you a favor by adding that red underline to the other spelling.

Also, Muslim is capitalized and according to Edim online, it's from the Arabic word Muslim,

and spelled like the current recommended spelling, which means one who submits to the faith.

And the Oxford English Dictionary notes that the current spelling is now the generally preferred one

because it's closer to that Arabic word from which it comes.

So, if you're older, Muslim with an O may be the spelling you learned, and you may even worry

that you're doing it wrong if you spell it the currently proper way, like Dan did, but you don't

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