Arabic spelling

The phonetic transliteration of a non-romance language, mate. That's what this is all about. Hummus, houmous, humous, humus: you name it, it all adds up to the word 'hum' and 'us'. It's not actually pronounced hum us, but then it's pronounced differently across the region in any case. The hum is more like houm, but flatly intoned. The 'm' is elongated. Whatever.

You might find that a quick shot at Ten Word Arabic helps here, you may not.

If you really thought you'd get something here on TE Lawrence's letters to his publisher, then I'm sorry.