Universiti Malaya Mocked for Using ‘Eksesais’ as the BM Word For ‘Exercise’ in Congratulatory Post For Olympian

Recently, Universiti Malaya took to their X account (formerly Twitter) to congratulate their student, national women’s track cyclist Nurul Izzah Izzati Asri, for breaking her own national record of 10.903 seconds by achieving 10.709 seconds at the 2024 Paris Olympics.

However, something else about their post caught Malaysians’ eyes.

In their post, Universiti Malaya highlighted that Nurul Izzah is a student from their Faculty of Sports and Exercise Science, which they mentioned in Bahasa Malaysia (BM) as ‘Fakulti Sukan dan Sains Eksesais’. (Basically, instead of the BM word for exercise, which is ‘senaman’, or the BM word for physical, which is ‘jasmani’, they used ‘eksesais’.)

Malaysians couldn’t get over the use of the word ‘eksesais’ and mocked the university for their choice. 

“I didn’t know that there was this word ‘eksesais’. I couldn’t find it when I searched in the Dewan Bahasa dan Pustaka (Institute of Language and Literature).”

“Is ‘eksesais’ the same as ‘korokodail’ (crocodile)?”

“‘Eksesais’? Does UM not remember and not know to use the word ‘senaman’?”

“So, are the words ‘jasmani’ or ‘senaman’ no longer in use?”

Apparently, while ‘eksesais’ isn’t actually a BM word (as it is absent in the Dewan Bahasa dan Pustaka), Malaysian military personnel do use the word to describe their training sessions.

Perhaps, thanks to Malaysians making the word ‘eksesais’ go viral, we might end up seeing it included in Dewan Bahasa dan Pustaka one of these days.

What do you think of the usage of the word ‘eksesais’? Do feel free to share your thoughts in the comment section.

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