Wednesday, February 13, 2019

Word(s) PSA

Well ...

The comic strip Non Sequitur in Sunday’s Orlando Sentinel and others papers across the nation included a vulgar comment directed at President Donald Trump. ... Julie Anderson, editor-in-chief of the Orlando Sentinel and the Sun Sentinel, said the cartoonist’s action was "a breach of trust with our readers."


Hmm ...

breach of trust, noun 1. Law . a violation of duty by a trustee. 2. a violation of duty or responsibility.

I doubt that there was ever any agreement, explicit or implicit, between cartoonist Wiley Miller and the readers of the Orlando Sentinel, under which he was obligated to never, ever, ever use a word that most of those readers probably occasionally use themselves and that 99.x% of them would never have noticed the use of if the Sentinel's editors hadn't called the matter to their attention.

Such an agreement might have existed between Miller and his syndication agent, or between that agent and the newspapers to which it provided Miller's work, I guess, but that's a different matter entirely.

Readers who require fainting couches and smelling salts when exposed to one of the most common "swear words" in the English language probably gave up newspaper comics long ago lest they put their souls at risk of eternal damnation or whatever.

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