To any pigs who may read this blog, I’d like to apologize if I offended you when I said something about “lipstick on a pig,” buried in a long post I wrote June 24, 2007:

“Again, traditional advertising is fine in many instances, if it is helpful, honest, informative — and not merely hype. You just can’t dress up something old in a new dress and say it is something different than traditional advertising in a new dress — sidenote: if I were just talking with southerners, I would have at that point mentioned something about lipstick and a pig.)

I apologize because when I used that phrase it didn’t occur to me that it would offend any female pigs (technically, sows) who might read it. It’s just a phrase I’ve heard all my life, growing up in the south and all.

(Background: here. Amusing (to me, at least) Sidenote: Illustrator Andy Rash did some lipstick-on-a-pig art for the Wall Street Journal earlier this year and blogged at the time, “I don’t think I knew this expression before I did this for the Wall Street Journal. Now I know.”)