Typo Appears on HKU Business School Webpage: "Deadline" Becomes "Dearline"

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Does the dreaded "deadline" suddenly turn affectionate? A Hong Kong man recently discovered a typo on the webpage for the Master of Business Administration (MBA) programme at The University of Hong Kong (HKU) Business School, where "Deadline" was mistakenly typed as "Dearline." He screenshotted the error and posted it on Threads, and the post quickly sparked heated discussion.

📸 "Application Dearline" — Netizens Joke It's Full of Love
The Hong Kong man posted on Threads on 16 October with a photo, asking: "May I ask what 'dearline' means?" The screenshot shows an English typo on the webpage for HKU Business School's MBA programme. HKU had intended to encourage applications for its full-time and part-time master's programmes, with applications closing in November, but "Application Deadline" was mistakenly typed as "Application Dearline," i.e., the letter "d" was mistakenly typed as "r." Some netizens joked that the webpage administrator might have "felt that the usual Deadline was too cold, too催促, too oppressive, so specially changed d to r to become the affectionate Dearline," and "maybe they were listening to Dear Jane while typing, thought it sounded good, and decided to use Dearline."

💬 Netizens: Proves HKU Doesn't Rely on AI
The post sparked heated discussion among netizens, with some criticising the webpage administrator for failing to proofread properly, and even suspecting it was a fake website. However, some netizens praised HKU for not relying on artificial intelligence (AI), which is why the typo occurred: "Proves HKU doesn't rely on AI, respect!" Some netizens also tried to smooth things over for HKU humorously: "First time discovering that deadline has a gentle alias," "It should be that the first guy's name is Application, and the second girl's name is Dearline."

✅ HKU Administrator Appears: Typo Has Been Corrected
The webpage administrator later appeared with the Threads account "hku_mba" and commented: "Thanks for spotting this. The typo has now been corrected."