What’s in a name? Sweden's Lund University releases statement
While Lund is the name of a medieval town in Southern Sweden, it means a man’s genitalia in Hindi.
By Glynda Alves, ET Bureau |
Agencies
Why would one of the top universities in the world need to delete hundreds of comments off their official Facebook page. It’s because of their name. Lund University in Sweden is ranked among the world's top 100 universities— but for many Indian Facebook users, it’s just a means to a meme.
The Facebook page of Lund University in Sweden recently released a statement that spoke about the name of the university and how it is rediscovered by students from various countries. While Lund is the name of a medieval town in Southern Sweden, in Hindi it means, well, a man’s genitalia.
Making a statement
The Facebook statement released last month said that the university is forced to spend hours deleting comments to keep their university page relevant for serious student questions,” because of the constant trolls by Facebook users “ in certain countries.”
The statement read, "We have had this Facebook page for ten years now and every now and then it is ‘rediscovered’ by students in certain countries who spread it to their friends. We are well aware that our name is entertaining to you and with thousands of languages in the world, there will of course always be words that sound funny in another language. Lund is the name of a medieval town in Southern Sweden. The word means “green area” and is pronounced in a very different way in Swedish than the word that you are thinking of in your language (sic)."
The statement continued, "The university name comes from the name of the city and the Swedish name is “Lunds Universitet.” This is an international research university founded in 1666 and ranked among the world’s top 100 universities. The Facebook page is used to communicate with prospective students from around the world and to answer their questions about admission, scholarship and more. Every year, we receive applications from 170 countries around the world from students who would like to receive a degree from a top-ranked university. If you are not a prospective student, we would appreciate if you could write your comments directly to your friends and not on our page. As admins of the page, we need to spend hours deleting hundreds of comments to keep the page manageable, relevant and available for serious students questions. Thank you (sic)."
Many users from India have since apologised to the university of behalf of the people who were making comments about the Lund University’s name.
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The Facebook page of Lund University in Sweden recently released a statement that spoke about the name of the university and how it is rediscovered by students from various countries. While Lund is the name of a medieval town in Southern Sweden, in Hindi it means, well, a man’s genitalia.
Making a statement
The Facebook statement released last month said that the university is forced to spend hours deleting comments to keep their university page relevant for serious student questions,” because of the constant trolls by Facebook users “ in certain countries.”
The statement read, "We have had this Facebook page for ten years now and every now and then it is ‘rediscovered’ by students in certain countries who spread it to their friends. We are well aware that our name is entertaining to you and with thousands of languages in the world, there will of course always be words that sound funny in another language. Lund is the name of a medieval town in Southern Sweden. The word means “green area” and is pronounced in a very different way in Swedish than the word that you are thinking of in your language (sic)."
The statement continued, "The university name comes from the name of the city and the Swedish name is “Lunds Universitet.” This is an international research university founded in 1666 and ranked among the world’s top 100 universities. The Facebook page is used to communicate with prospective students from around the world and to answer their questions about admission, scholarship and more. Every year, we receive applications from 170 countries around the world from students who would like to receive a degree from a top-ranked university. If you are not a prospective student, we would appreciate if you could write your comments directly to your friends and not on our page. As admins of the page, we need to spend hours deleting hundreds of comments to keep the page manageable, relevant and available for serious students questions. Thank you (sic)."
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Many users from India have since apologised to the university of behalf of the people who were making comments about the Lund University’s name.
Here are some other unique ministries in the world.
(Image: traceycrouch.org)
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