\n<\/p>\n
A staircase at Parramatta Public School in Sydney, Australia, was meant to be a nod to diversity.<\/p>\n
Each step asked a simple question \u2013 How are you? \u2013 in a different language: Chinese, Bahasa, Tamil, Farsi, German, Japanese. <\/p>\n
Then came the Tagalog step.<\/p>\n
Instead of \u201cKumusta\u201d or \u201cKamusta\u201d, it read \u201cKumasta\u201d.<\/p>\n
The subtle swop in vowels was a faux pas that left a large online horde of Filipinos chuckling, sniggering and exchanging knowing glances.<\/p>\n
\u201cKumasta\u201d \u2013 far from being a jovial, friendly greeting \u2013 is Tagalog slang for, to put it mildly, \u201chaving intercourse\u201d.<\/p>\n
The typo likely would have gone unnoticed, but a Philippine online news site, radar.ph, spotted a photo of the staircase and posted it on its Facebook and Instagram accounts on April 21.<\/p>\n
The post has since been viewed tens of thousands of times, and set off a hailstorm of naughty verbal callisthenics among Filipinos.<\/p>\n
The most common was a play on the question \u201cKumusta ka na?\u201d \u2013 How are you? \u2013 that was rejigged to \u201cKumasta ka na?\u201d, which translates to the altogether different query: Have you had intercourse yet?<\/p>\n
In its original post, radar.ph said the staircase was at Little India MRT station in Singapore.<\/p>\n
A little sleuthing, however, revealed that it was, in fact, at Parramatta Public School, in Sydney.<\/p>\n
Mr Ben Worsley, Parramatta\u2019s principal media officer, confirmed to The Straits Times on April 23 that the staircase was indeed at the school.<\/p>\n