SINGAPORE: Mr Simon Wong, Singapore High Commissioner to India, posted a photo on X (formerly known as Twitter) on Oct 8 (Sunday) of an official road sign in Delhi which showed Singapore spelt as “Singapur.”
The sign is located near the office of the High Commission and the Embassy of Vietnam. Mr Wong had seen it while he was on his daily walk. He captioned his post, “It is always good to spell check first. HC Wong,” along with two face-palm emojis. He also posted a photo of himself wearing a shirt with the word “SINGAPORE” beside the photo of the misspelt sign.
Fortunately, even if it was a Sunday morning, officials were on the alert and made the corrections swiftly. A few hours later, Mr Wong posted another photo of the now-corrected sign, writing, “Thank you for the quick fix.”
Both posts went viral, and Mr Wong’s first post caused a number of X-users to tag the Municipal Corporation of Delhi (@MCD_Delhi), hoping that the error would “get… corrected ASAP!!” Others, meanwhile, apologised for the mistake.
And while many netizens were happy once the error was rectified, on a Sunday no less, others pointed out that the “O” in the corrected sign looked more like a zero “0”, which for them technically still makes it incorrect. “SINGAP-O-RE. NOT SINGAP-0-RE,” wrote one. The board, they pointed out, had not been changed, although they admitted that the error had been corrected.
Interestingly, “Singapore” is still written as “Singapur” in some countries and is historically closer to the name’s origins. But the name of the Republic is officially spelt as “Singapore.”
“Singapore” originated from the Malay name “Singapura.” This means Lion City in Sanskrit, with “singa” coming from the Sanskrit word siṃha (सिंह), meaning “lion,” and “pura,” coming from the Sanskrit word pūra (पुर), meaning “city.” As a suffix, “pura” is commonly found among the names of places with Indian origins, such as Jaipur and Jodhpur. Singapore’s official name in Malay is “Republik Singapura.”
“Recent studies have verified that lions have never roamed Singapore. However, the original legend was that a long time ago, a 14th century Sumatran prince spotted an auspicious beast upon landing on the island after a thunderstorm, which he was told was a ‘lion’,” reads one article on the origins of Singapore’s name. Going back further in history, an older name for the county would be “Temasek,” a 13th-century Javanese name that means “Sea Town.” /TISG