Coca-Cola apologises after customer finds 'YOU RETARD' printed inside bottle cap

mail online ^ | Helen Collis

[Morgana]

Drinks giant Coca-Cola has apologised to a family after it found 'You Retard' printed inside a bottle cap.

Blake Loates, from Alberta, Canada, was shocked to read the insulting profanity as she drank from the low-calorie fruit drink.

'We immediately thought, you have got to be kidding me?' she told the Huffington Post Alberta.

'We thought it might been a disgruntled employee or someone in a (bottling) plant playing a joke,' she added.

Appalled, she took a photo of the lid and its printed insult and sent it to her father, Doug Loates, who immediately penned a letter to the mega-firm.

In the letter, seen by the Huffington Post, he told the company, '... the "R" word is considered a swear word in our family. We don't use it. We don't tolerate others using it around us. We ARE over-sensitive but you would be too if you had Fiona for a daughter!'

He explained that he has two young daughters, both born premature and consequently suffer disabilities, and two older daughters, including Blake, from his first marriage.

He says through his daughters he has leaned to 'give', 'care' and 'enjoy small miracles'.

[rarestia]

Does anyone not remember when the word “retard” meant “to slow?”

[luvbach1]

Does anyone not remember when the word “retard” meant “to slow?”

Yes, and it still does.

[ObamaMustGo2012]

I think you have to be retarded to drink soda.

[Sacajaweau]

Please...the word means someone is slow....Doing away with words and we will not be able to interpret our history.

[vladimir998]

“insulting profanity”

Really?

[Sacajaweau]

you mean like.....”retard the growth of mold”?

[Raycpa]

I’m skeptical. It makes no sense to purposely put that on what would have to be thousands of bottles. What would make sense is a defective print job that has partial sentence or a random generator sequence for a code.

[Bloody Sam Roberts]

Does anyone not remember when the word “retard” meant “to slow?”

Do musical transcriptions or sheet music still use the word 'ritard'? Or has PC crept all the way through every facet of modern society?

[Morgana]

More like “Retard the government spending”

[Raycpa]

Edmonton woman Blake Loates shows the Vitamin Water bottle cap she received with the words “you retard” printed on it. Coca-Cola has since apologized for the mistake, which happened because of a promotion involving both English and French words. In French, “retard” means late or delayed.

http://www.globalpost.com/photo/5939303/you-retard-bottle-cap-coke-apologizes

[70times7]

But it was a low calorie fruit drink!

This will teach them. Next time the employee should write "You Idiot!".

No. Wait, that could be problematic too. I can see it now...

'... the "I" word is considered a swear word in our family. We don't use it. We don't tolerate others using it around us. We ARE over-sensitive but you would be too if you had liberals in your family!'

[riverrunner]

What a bunch of wimps people of become. PC correct BS.

[ObamaMustGo2012]

I think you pretty much have to be retarded to drink soda.

[from occupied ga]

insulting profanity

"Retard" is NOT profanity. And from the family's response, not inaccurate either.

[ObamaMustGo2012]

Oops. Sorry for the double post. Computer problems at work.

[Tainan]

...retard the spark....

[Raycpa]

You would thing that the result of a dual language promotion in a dual language country would not result in such a retarded reaction.

[Dr. Sivana]

Does anyone not remember when the word “retard” meant “to slow?”

Yes, it does mean that. Here's the problem. Mentally handicapped children were put in retarded classes, etc., and at some point the word became an epithet: "You retard!" Or, "That's retarded!" Once the word was used that way, and retarded children (adj. + noun) simply became "retards", yes it became offensive. The reason it happened with retard and not idioy probably has to do with the fact that the term idiot is rarely used to describe people who are literally idiots.

So, new words get adopted. "Slow" doesn't work, who remembers the "Slow Children at Play" signs? Euphemisms get invented ("Rides the short bus.") The word "special" or "differently abled" just invites ridicule and caricature pronunciation. Any new word (I always thought "handicap" was a better word for this class of things) is likely to over time undergo the same treatment as retard did.

But yes, "You retard" on a bottle cap is a cruel insult. The word "a**hole" still has a normal meaning, and all of us have one, but to be called that is stil insulting.

[MDspinboyredux]

There is money to be made in outrage.

Get angry, get paid!