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Washington Post

PEARLS BEFORE ‘NEIN’: Stephan Pastis finds irony in Post nixing strip about word choice…because of word choice.

The award-nominated creator of the comic strip “Pearls Before Swine” found irony when The Washington Post nixed his comic on word choice over some choice words. Stephan Pastis’ strip, which ran in many other publications last Sunday, riffed on society’s penchant to periodically remove certain words from the lexicon in favor of more politically correct terminology. The Post said they had an issue with the word “midget,” which in Pastis’ strip was swapped out by a single figurehead known as Willy the Word Decider for “little person” for no real reason. The Post said “midget” seemed like too much of a slur but Pastis said that was the point– to start a discussion.