Singapore Ambassador Simon Wong ticks off NMDC over wrong spelling, expresses gratitude later for quick fix

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Singapore High Commissioner to India Simon Wong flagged a purported spelling error made by the New Delhi Municipal Corporation (NDMC) on his official X account recently.

The foreign diplomat claimed that Singapore has been misspelt as โ€˜Singapurโ€™ on a signboard in Lutyensโ€™ Delhi. Tagging the Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) and the NDMC, Wong uploaded an image of the signboard and captioned his post, โ€œIt is always good to spell check first.โ€

The image was uploaded at around 8:50 am Sunday and went viral soon after. Reacting to the post, several social media users explained that Indians spell โ€˜poreโ€™ as โ€˜purโ€™. A person wrote, โ€œThis sounds similar to what Britishers did with โ€˜Thakurโ€™ they made it Tagore.โ€

โ€œItโ€™s interesting because Indian cities with โ€˜poreโ€™ were renamed to its original โ€˜purโ€™. Like Cawnpore became Kanpur. I wonder if Singapore has similar origins,โ€ another user commented.

โ€œThis is nothing. Most of the Punjabi translations of signages in Delhi are outright wrong. Have complained multiple times, but nothing changes,โ€ a user said while attaching pictures of signages installed at Aurangzeb Lane, Kautilya Marg, Janpath, and Mansingh Road.

However, the NDMC quickly fixed the โ€˜Singapurโ€™ issue by using some white tape. Following this, Wong expressed his gratitude to the municipal bodies. โ€œI appreciate the rapid fix. HC Wong @tweetndmc @MCD_Delhi,โ€ Wong posted on X. Reacting to Wongโ€™s second post, a social media user wrote, โ€œNot a good pasting job India. Iโ€™m sure we can do better.โ€