It is one of the top universities in the world—ranked among the world's top 100 universities— but many Indian Facebook users, Lund University in Sweden seems to be nothing more than a prop to churn out memes.
Lund is the name of a medieval town in Southern Sweden. The word means "green area", but in Hindi, lund means genital of a man. According to a statement issued by the university, they are forced to “spend hours deleting hundreds of comments to keep the page manageable, relevant and available for serious student questions,” because of the constant trolls by Facebook users “ in certain countries.”
The university, in the statement, said, “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.”
Explaining the meaning of the Swedish word "lund", the statement said, "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. The university name comes from the name of the city and the Swedish name is "Lunds universitet".
The university, in the statement, urged people to refrain from commenting on the page as they receive applications from "170 countries around the world from students who would like to receive a degree from a top-ranked university" and hence they need to keep the page "manageable, relevant and available for serious student questions."
"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 student questions. Thank you,” the statement read.
Sharing the statement from the university on his Facebook page, a user, Saswata Sarkar, wrote: "Those of you who were creating a content by making fun of the University and by sharing it your friend's wall you guys have successfully made a global outreach by defaming the University as well as letting down the name of the country. Congratulations bright young minds.
I hope you find this relevant and owe up to your mistake.
I feel ashamed to tag you all.
My heartfelt apologies to Lund University.
P.S.- I'm surprised by how people react when someone protest. The ill effects of the freedom of speech and expression."
