Liquorice pellets with the brand-name ?Nigroids? have angered an American visitor but Robertson?s Pharmacy in St. George?s said it is the first complaint.

Linda Harmon of Marlborough, Connecticut, said she saw the boxes two weeks ago and did a double-take.

?Surely, my eyes were playing tricks.

?Since I did not see this product in any of the many stores I visited during my vacation, at the end of our stay I returned to Robertson?s, hoping that someone in the store had whisked the box out of the public?s eye.

?Unfortunately, I found the box in place. Normally I prefer to find the humorous side to situations. Humour doesn?t do the job for me in this situation.

?My sensibilities continue to be offended that any product is so named, and further, that merchandise managers in as fine a store as Robertson?s actually carry and display this product, no matter how effective it may be.?

However store manager Valerie Lewis said: ?We have never had a complaint before and we have been selling them for God knows how many years. To me she doesn?t have a point.?

She said the word nigritude was in her dictionary meaning ?blackness? and was derived from Latin. ?I think she is being oversensitive.?

Black Alliance secretary Claudette Fleming said derivatives of that word were used in foreign languages.

Asked if it was offensive she said: ?It?s a question for the manufacturer. Whether it is offensive I can?t say, that?s an individual personal type of question.?

Consumer Affairs executive director Karen Marshall said no complaints had been registered.

Human Rights Commission chairperson Mary Anne-Scott also had not heard any complaints but she said she would raise it with executive director.

A straw poll by found mixed reactions to the product.

One said: ?They need to find something to worry about? while another said ?It means black?.

However, one said: ?I can?t believe that a right-thinking marketing person in Bermuda could fail to see the possibility of offending sensitivities.

?If it wasn?t so regrettable and pathetic it would be laughable. They taste awful too ? it left me with a bad taste in my mouth for hours literally and figuratively.?

Another wanted to know more about the English company which made the product while another said the name was poor marketing and would turn her off from buying it.