The folks at Puffin Books have unsheathed their gelding shears and are cheerfully neutering the literary output of Roald Dahl. They are removing whatever words, passages, and characters offend the bluenoses at “Inclusive Minds”—a self-described “collective” of those “committed to changing the face of children's books.” Puffin apparently saw the above definition and reimagined it as a business plan. The problem with the OED definition is that Thomas Bowdler is a dead male European, and so, unfortunately, the word “to bowdlerize” exhibits a shocking lack of diversity. It’s time for a more inclusive term: “to puffinize.”
