Bangalore city of Bengalis? OUPs!

New Delhi: Oxford University Press (OUP) seems to have committed the ultimate faux pas in word play.

In the latest edition of the Oxford Concise Dictionary of World Place Names, there are erroneous references to Bangalore as an area where the population mainly spoke Bengali.

Edited by John Everett Heath, the dictionary while tracing the history of Bangalore, also said that Bengalis took their name from a chief called Banga.

The dictionary also sprung a chronological error when it stated that the city took its name from the fact that it was founded as a mud fort in 1537 by Kempe Gowda, a local chief of Hoysala Kingdom.

However, in a swift damage control act, OUP on Friday expressed regret and announced suspension of sale of the edition.

"OUP is deeply sorry about the errors that have been brought to our attention in The Concise Dictionary of World Place-Names," the publishers said in a statement hours after Karnataka dashed off a letter to it demanding immediate withdrawal of the copies.

"We have frozen the stock of the book and stopped selling the same from our warehouses, and will be pulping the remaining copies," the statement added.

Karnataka Government's Kannada and Culture Department Secretary I M Vittala Murthy told PTI that "the government has asked OUP to rectify the mistake."

Meanwhile, members of Kannada Geleyara Balaga along with KSRTC Kannada Kriya Samithi, Kannada Jana Shakti, Hal Karmika Loka, have threatened to stage a protest in front of the Bangalore office of the OUP on Monday and burn copies of the dictionary.