This story about a censored cake made for high school graduate Jacob Koscinski is more than a little funny. Just look at this dumb cake purchased from the grocery store Publix!

[Photo credit: Cara Koscinski]

It seems certain that this was the result of an overzealous automated filter, coupled with a worker not getting paid enough to care about the details. That’s stupid, and somewhat shameful, but it doesn’t merit any real outrage. And yet, my goodness, the overreaction!

Jacob was “absolutely humiliated,” Koscinski said to The Post. “It was unbelievable. I ordered the special graduation edition cake. I can’t believe I’m the first one to ever write “Summa Cum Laude” on a cake.

Getting a censored cake is really not “humilating”. Having your mother share the story with the entire world, however, is.

Shame on you Publix for turning an innocent Latin phrase into a total embarrassment for having to explain to my son and others (including my 70 year old mother) about this joke of a cake

That’s quite the sentence construction! But setting that aside, it seems to me that saying “Oh, they messed up the cake. Oh well” might also have been an option. Also, an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure, and given the initial warning the system provided, it would have been smart to prepare the folks picking up the cake. They could have gotten it corrected in person, or even done it themselves. The message was written in icing, not stone.

Finally, in re-reading their article, I noticed that the Washington Post adeptly managed to avoid explaining why the word was considered profane. I expect most readers of this site already know. If not, have a look at Merriam-Webster, scrolling down to the “vulgar” definition.