Text messaging, while convenient, can occasionally be a source of miscommunication and confusion -- when done in haste.

The lack of context and the ability to pick out the tone of voice can lead to troubling, or rather, amusing situations.

Take Marrcus, a passenger who booked a driver on the ride-hailing app Grab.

His driver had sent him a message to inform him that he about to reach Marrcus's destination in two minutes, with info about his car.

However, the Grab driver typed his message pretty efficiently, which caused a genuine misunderstanding:

If you don't get it, you either don't drive or keep your eyes peeled on the roads.

The actual meaning of the Grab Driver's message is that he is arriving in a KIA car, which happens to be black in colour.

The other meaning would be something more offensive: "kia" can be interpreted as the Hokkien word for child or person. For example, pai kia would mean bad boy.

In this case, it turned into an accidental insult where Marrcus thought the driver was calling him a black kia, instead of informing Marrcus that his car is a black-coloured KIA.

This language slip is kind of similar to this one below:

[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="459"] Meme via JustPost[/caption]

Oops.

So if you drive a KIA, remember to always to write the name of your vehicle in capital letters.

Not only it's grammatically correct, it avoids awkward situations like this one.

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Top image adapted via and via

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