Badly written social media posts by the Central Student Council (CSC) on the UST Growling Tigers’ victory drew brickbats from netizens on Thursday, forcing the president to apologize.
The CSC’s social media accounts had apparently overused the thesaurus in announcing the result of the stepladder game between the Tigers and the UP Fighting Maroons on Wednesday.
“Even tides stirred differently by a hair at 1st half, the UST Growling Tigers belabored doubts and vanquish whilom finals candidate, UP Fighting Maroons, as they invoked a 68-65-coup to flip the script to a future finale matchup,” @UST_CSC tweeted.
Netizens poked fun at the CSC posts for pompous language, faulty grammar and flat-out erroneous word choices.
“Whilom,” for instance, is an archaic word that means “former,” according to the American Heritage Dictionary. The post confused “finale,” which means the concluding part of a performance, with “finals,” shorthand for a basketball championship series.
Twitter user @diegomags came up with his own verbose reply: “Hark! Though immense sorrow overflows my cardiovascular organ, we of the University of the Philippines would like to extend our heartfelt approbation for your faction’s triumphant effectuation. May your athletes realize victory yet again at the culminating match of the tourney.”
The CSC page also used the word “inning,” a baseball term for a team’s turn at the bat, to refer to the halftime of basketball.
“Shifted tones at halfway inning by a back-and-forth offensive setting, the UST Growling Tigers cracked the elusive upper podium capper as they raze UP Fighting Maroons’ advantage. Navigated intense defense traffic at last ticks by a 66-65 victory,” the CSC tweeted, along with a graphic that contained the final score.
The erroneous tweet had to be followed by an erratum: The final score stood at 68-65.
CSC President Robert Dominic Gonzales said the council was taking full responsibility for the posts.
“All suggestions and constructive criticism will surely be taken as a learning experience for the council,” the CSC said in a statement.
Despite clamor on Facebook and Twitter for the embarrassing posts to be deleted, they have yet to be taken down as of this story’s posting.
Be of good cheer Thomasians! Hold on to what is rightly yours, mirth at the moment; celebrate and quaff spirits, eat meat; invigorate and fortify for the morrow’s contest. Victory is but a hair breadth away. GO USTe!