Story Archive

Oh, Cum On!

You might expect a Christian home schooling mother not to want cum on a cake she had ordered for her son, but Cara Koscinski said “it was a huge shock” when a major name supermarket in Johns Island, S.C., left it off, despite her clear instructions. In this case, “cum” was to have been sandwiched between summa and laude: it’s Latin for “with” and Jacob Koscinski had graduated “with highest honors.” Cara had placed the order on the supermarket company’s website, and when the software redacted the word as “offensive,” she used the instructions field to make explicit why the idea that this cum was dirty was all wet. It didn’t help. Afterwards, the Koscinskis got their money back; perhaps Publix realized it shouldn’t be so hard on things that can be misread. By then, however, Jacob had had to explain to his friends how it could be misread. “And they were giggling uncontrollably,” he said. (AC/WCIV Charleston, NH1) ...Worse, he then had to explain to his mother how he knew.