Tuesday 21 July 2009

Want to be High-Class, Don't Make Silly Spelling Mistakes NUSS

The other day I received an unsolicited mailer from NUSS (National University of Singapore Society) offering a discount on their Graduate Club membership. First of all, I have no idea why they would send unsolicited mail aimlessly when they are an exclusive club and why they would, of all places, choose to target a block that is predominately filled with 3-room flats.

The price to join was indicated as S$4,000 - apparently this is a bargain compared to their tariff rate of S$10,000 - which I am sure that Singaporeans tightening their belts in this recession like me would be heartened to consider. Unfortunately, the fine print looked at me disgustingly - 'only open to graduates from local & recognised foreign universities', so there was no chance for a pariah like me.

But just as I was about to put the mailer onto my 'recyclable' stack, I realised something rather odd. Apparently, when you are high-class there is a different spelling system and "price incresses" instead of "price increases" (see image below).

Or... it could very well be that a society/club that has no issues with mass-mailing gloss-finished postcard mailers to households who are unlikely to qualify and/or afford their memberships couldn't be bothered to hire a professional proofreader.


10 comments:

eidetical said...

to "higher" a proofreader? Nice English there.

Ganga said...


All in the pursuit of aspiring to be NUSS-standard perhaps? Hahaha, thanks for the correction - been making dyslexic-type errors like these in my emails and blog posts recently (e.g. their/they're, this/these etc.)

Anonymous said...

"couldn't be the least bothered to higher a professional proof-reader."

Is that a scarasm?

That error is obviously typo. The letter 'S' is just beside 'A'.

Ganga said...


Yes, it's an obvious typo ... and they obviously should have re-checked before printing and mailing too!

Xtrocious said...

Actually these sort of typos are so extremely common until I don't know whether to cringe or not each time I see it...

Talk about pride in work...sigh

Anonymous said...

For all you know, they DID do the proof read and reverted to the printer who made the mistake.

And due to the mistake, the printer is not likely to want that batch of flyers back.

So some enterprising bigot in NUSS probably thought, "Why waste the flyers? They are free now. Let's send it out to every father, mother and son out there to see if we can solicit for more memberships!"

That is why you and I got such invites. 8))

ed said...

Interesting how none seemed to have noticed the lack of ethnic representation in the brochure. Life is far more than typos, methinks. I know that such a 'representation' would incite quite a fuss, say, in the UK. I'd opt for bad english vs. perspectival retardation any day.

Ganga said...


A very interesting scenario proposed, Anonymous@1349hrs, and pretty much plausible too!

Xtrocious, people are not taking good English seriously these days and that is indeed very sad.

And Ed, I've given up on that issue already - whether they are politically correct or not, such 'equality' is superficial at best, anyways.

Anonymous said...

Graduates and alumni clubs are places where people with mediocre acheivements hope to rub shoulders or associate themselves with the "elites". Basicaly they are nothing more than a gathering place for losers to masturbate and give each other's ego a blowjob.

Anonymous said...

Do you think highclass make flyers themselves? It's people like us do. Don't waste paper lah. So I sent it out in 3 room flats estate mailboxes. If someone there make it in life then he can consider to jerk off with the elites mah. Don't blame me im just paid $3.50/hr.