“What’s the difference between ISIS and ISIL?” the woman asked as we stood in the deli line Friday to place our order.

I had read some explanations about the different names for the barbaric thugs operating in Iraq and Syria, but hadn’t done much research. So her question prodded me to give the situation a closer look.

ISIS stands for the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria. ISIL is the acronym for the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant. The Levant is that area between Turkey, Iraq and the Red Sea, which includes Lebanon, Jordan, Israel and the Palestinian territories.

CNN said the organization got its start in 2004 when the late Abu Musab al-Zarqawi formed an al Qaeda splinter group in Iraq. Its goal was to fuel a sectarian war against the majority Shiite community in Iraq.

Al-Zarqawi was killed in a U.S. airstrike in 2006 and his successor created the Islamic State in Iraq (ISI). It later linked up to an al Qaeda group in Syria and became ISIL.

The organization has its eyes on capturing territory in those other places, so it preferred ISIL in the beginning. However, now the jihadists call themselves the Islamic State, which CNN called “a term more accurately reflecting the organization’s aspirations of creating a caliphate across national borders.”

A caliphate is described as a political-religious state comprising the Muslim community.

The Washington Post wrote in early September about confusion over the use of ISIS and ISIL. President Obama and Secretary of State John Kerry have used ISIL from the start, but NBC News and others were using ISIS.

Republicans in Congress have used ISIS 86 percent of the time in floor speeches, according to RollCall.com. It said Democrats have used ISIL 54 percent of the time.

Jaime Fuller of the Post said Sept. 9, “In the Capitol on Tuesday morning, House Democrats decided after a long debate that they too would call the extremist group ISIL — partly because ISIS was a name that first belonged to a goddess, and then to thousands of women who took said goddess’s name, before a terrorist group claimed it…”

Fuller said women named Isis are aggravated by the use of ISIS to describe the terrorists. Isis Martinez, a Miami woman, has started a petition asking the media to use ISIL instead, he said. At that time she had collected only 138 signatures.

CNN offered another explanation. It said some people think ISIS flows better as a word in English.

The Associated Press and others are using Islamic State to describe the terrorists. However, some in the Muslim community don’t like to have the word “Islamic” associated with the name.

The AP now refers to the terrorists on first reference as “Islamic militants,” “jihadi fighters,” “the leading Islamic militant group fighting in Iraq (Syria), etc.…”

On second reference they are called, “the group which calls itself the Islamic State.” It said using the word group makes it clear it isn’t an internationally recognized state.

RollCall.com said members of Congress are using both terms. And among those the online newspaper mentioned was Rep. Charles Boustany, R-Lafayette, who represents this corner of the state. He is sticking with ISIL.

“While Congress can’t make up its mind on the matter, on the Internet, the ISIS vs. ISIL debate is over,” Roll Call said. “An impromptu Google search … turned up 85 million hits for ISIS and fewer than 3 million for ISIL.”

Howard Barbanel, writing for the Huffington Post, said we should ask the head of ISIS or ISIL what he thinks.

“There’s a scary-looking black-clad guy named Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi who is the head of ISIS (or ISIL),” Barbanel said. “Perhaps when our team of Navy Seals eventually gets to his lair in Syria, just before we pull the trigger, we can ask him which English-language acronym he prefers. After all, a caliph should be able to write his own epitaph…”

After all of this debate over what the acronyms mean, you can understand why there is confusion among the general public.

A reader of the Washington Post offered perhaps the best response to the concern over which name is preferred.

“Just call them Islamic terrorists,” he said. “What’s the harm in that? No acronyms. Nobody offended.”

Another reader said, “What U.S. politicians are doing with the name is the kind of thing our politicians do best to divert attention away from how poorly they are doing at running the government effectively and efficiently.”

ITIS (Islamic Terrorists in Syria) was suggested by a third reader as a better and much more accurate acronym.

“They are not, and never will be, a state,” he said. Plus, ‘itis’ is at the end of names of many diseases and Islamic terrorists are a disease on our planet.”

Then, there was this from still another reader.

“I’ll be happy once they are referred to as one of the following:

RHIS — Running and Hiding Islamist State

DIS — Dead Islamist State

VIS — Vaporized Islamist State.”

Leave it to newspaper and online readers to come up with reasoning that makes a lot of sense. They don’t get bogged down in technicalities, niceties or political correctness.

Whatever the terrorists are called, it appears the U.S. delay in coming to terms with the barbarians has allowed them to grow into a force that won’t be easily eliminated.(MGNonline)