Terms of endearment are all very well, but it is perhaps better to refrain from calling the Finance Minister of India 'sweetie' on Twitter while criticising her.
And one Twitter user discovered this the hard way recently.
After Nirmala Sitharaman posted a quote on Twitter to mark Vivekananda Jayanti, a Twitter user tried to point out a flaw in the quote.
Sitharaman wrote:
"Awake, arise, and dream no more!
This is the land of dreams, where Karma
Weaves unthreaded garlands with our thoughts
...Be bold, and face
The Truth! Be one with it! Let visions cease...
The Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda IV, pp 388-89"
Following the tweet, a social media user said that she had misquoted.
"Sweetie its “cease not until your goal is reached” not “dream no more”; unless it’s Budget 2020 that you are warning us about!" he wrote.
Sitharaman ignored the term of endearment, but hit back at the commenter saying that the piece she had excerpted was from 'The Awakened India'.
"BTW (by the way), I had cited the reference below the verse itself. Pub by Advaita Ashrama if you’re further interested," she wrote.
And while Sitharaman ignored the term in her response to the social media user, not everyone could do the same. Many expressed their outrage, while others lauded Sitharaman for her handling of the situation.
As one Twitter user said, "Is that how you quote a lady not personally known to you and that too on a public platform??"
Take a look at some of the reactions:
