Over the last two decades of using text messaging, I’ve come to believe that the 10th circle of hell comprises people who use ‘jelak’ without knowing its proper spelling, and who continue making the same mistake even after finding out how it’s spelt.

In the Singaporean vernacular, ‘jelak’ refers to feeling ‘sick of eating’ or nauseated, particularly with overwhelmingly rich foods. It’s also so ingrained that any misspelling of the word by a Singaporean is ignorant and inexcusable in 2019.

So please, it’s not ‘jelat’.

Don’t worry, these jelak/jelat offenders won’t be alone. In the same circle of hell, you’ll find people who spell ‘macam’ as ‘machiam’, macam Chinese word; ‘sekali’ as ‘scully’ a la the alien-fighting female protagonist of The X-Files; and ‘mampus’ as ‘mampos’, a monstrosity that’s truly mampus.

Up until a few weeks ago, if you’d thought I was just another damn extra Chinese person feeling offended for a minority race when they never asked for my annoyance, I’d have accepted this perfectly reasonable character assessment.

Then this tweet made me realise my frustration with jelak/jelat offenders was a bigger issue that many others could relate to: