Graduation blooper
June 8, 2010
So you may have heard about this incident at the recent Ngee Ann Graduation Ceremony where the emcee mispronounced a graduate’s name when he went on stage to collect his certificate. Not only did the emcee pronounce his name wrongly, the mispronounced name that the emcee said sounded like a hokkien vulgarity. This caused the audience to burst into laughter. To top it all off, further attempts to pronounce the name correctly were in vain and the emcee ended with a ‘sorry’, followed by the next graduate’s name.
There was much hoo-ha caused by this incident after it happened. Many netizens were sorely unhappy and took it to Facebook and Youtube. There were multiple Youtube videos showing what happened and to date, the video with the highest number of views has garnered 67,040 views. There was even a Facebook group titled ‘Son Of Ganesan Deserves A Formal Apology’. I read the comments on the Youtube video and they are mostly against the emcee. Some comments even state that the mispronunciation was ‘obviously staged’ and the emcee did it on purpose.
I feel so sorry for the emcee. I strongly feel that he did not do it on purpose. Comeon, who would have the heart to ruin someone’s only and one Graduation Day? And it really sounded like a pretty honest mistake. I think the emcee must have been tongue tied or something. After all, there were many people in the audience and so many graduate’s names to read. One has the tendency to mispronouce words when one’s facing such a large audience. What aggravated the incident was the videos uploaded onto Youtube. I feel that the person who uploaded it should remove it as it is causing much fury against the emcee. If not the circulation of the video, I would not have known about the incident.
There are so many people being so negative about this incident, but seriously if they each mind their own business it wouldn’t be such a big deal after all. The emcee made a mistake, apologised, and moved on. And people should move on too. Of course I agree that the ‘victim’ deserves an apology, but it’s really none of our business. If the ‘victim’ wants to take action against this emcee, so be it. People should shut up and back off.
