Hi Gin Lee,

We have just received the review unit of the device. However, to our DISMAY, there is no box package (inclusive of installation disc and manual) as the condition that we sent to you earlier.

This was the email message which I received from a tech PR exec in Singapore. I read it, and read it again. Then I started laughing. I am no English language guru, but to feel dismay is to feel despair and desolace, of extreme sadness, fear or worry over a particular matter.

Dismal or dismay evokes a strong feeling of hopelessness, like how the humans must have felt when the 12 colonies were destroyed by the Cylons in Battlestar Galactica, perhaps how Jack Bauer must have felt when his wife Teri was killed by Nina Myers, of how my Human Paladin must have felt while traversing the charred lands at Burning Steppes or the barren lands of Desolace.

But it certainly does not apply to a PR exec who receives a product back from the journalist, only to find that the plastic box which comes with it is missing.

In fact, DISMAY is when a journalist takes your review unit and decides not to run a story. JOY is when the journalist actually does write one, even if the cheap plastic box that comes with the device goes missing.