(Disclaimer: this is a work of fiction. Learn to take a joke; you’ll live longer.)
As Karachi’s premier social event showcasing the edgiest, most profound art, attended by the intellectual and liberal cream of the metropolitan city turned controversial for all the wrong reasons, the entire country, on Sunday, was thrown into a tizzy as the nation struggled to grasp the correct meaning, spelling and pronunciation of the word ‘Biennale’.
Story of the forced closure of an installation at the event was quickly taken over, in terms of virality, by heated debates over how the word is pronounced. Things went from bad to worse, as multiple restaurants, at Islamabad’s upscale Kohsar Market, had to eject customers who after screaming incorrect pronunciations of the word at each other resorted to fists and blades.
“I was just standing there shocked, looking at the madness unfold. I mean it’s just a word Goddammit! Just a word!” commented one bystander unable to control his emotions, breaking down in tears.
The online world was not exempt from the chaos as arguments over the meaning of the word caused Dictionary.com to temporarily crash while there were multiple reports of widespread issues with the functionality of the Ctrl and V keys of laptops and PCs.
The Dependent’s research wing calculates around 99.2% of Facebook users, in their comments, had spelt the word wrongly, the closest version being ‘Biennale’.
At time of writing the writer had used Windows autocorrect a mere two times.
