REMEMBER when Dewan Bahasa and Pustaka shared that the correct spelling of “Murtabak” was “Martabak” and “Bazaar” is actually “Bazar“?
That was truly a mind-blowing day for many Malaysians.
But even such spelling mistakes can be made by prestigious local education institutions.
Shared by Universiti Malaya (UM) onto its X account on Aug 11, it was a congratulatory post to national athlete Nurul Izzah Izzati Asri, who broke the national record for cycling at the recent Olympics.
“Tahniah! UM merakamkan setinggi-tinggi tahniah kepada Nurul Izzah Izzati Asri, pelajar Fakulti Sukan dan Sains Eksesais atas kejayaan memecahkan rekod kebangsaan dalam acara pecut berbasikal individu,” said the caption.
But if you look closely, you will notice the glaring error.
“Eksesais”. Yes, that’s the one.
The go-to word for exercise is Malay is usually senaman. But in the post by UM, they however translated exercise to “eksesais”.
We did a quick check on Dewan Bahasa and Pustaka’s website and discovered that there was no such word as “eksesais” in the Malay dictionary.
The post has since gotten over 1.6 million views and not for the right reasons.
Malaysian netizens have been flooding the comment section exclaiming their surprise that a local university would not know the right word for exercise.
“Sains eksesais? Sains senaman. UM is terrible,” commented X user @DrAFKam.
“Is this the level of Malay language at a leading university in the country?” questioned @CoolandClassicA.
A few others mocked the university, commenting that the word “jasmani” and “senaman” was no longer used.
The post is still up at the time of writing and the “eksesais” word still remains.
