The Midget pub (Image: Andy Ffrench)

Abingdon, Oxfordshire, England, about halfway between London and Gloucester, was at one time the home of MG Motors, the maker, among other models, of the MG Midget, holder of the world land speed record. The business is now owned by a Chinese firm and autos with the MG marque are produced in China. 

The pub was established in 1974 and has carried the same name since. But, in a world where disapproval can be expressed from a comfortable chair via a digital petition, a simple, uncontroversial word can be doomed to infamy. Apparently there are some, perhaps midgets themselves, that find the word demeaning and obnoxious. Why this should be is a mystery. There will always be a word needed to describe a smaller adult human. Dwarf isn't it either since a midget and dwarf are not the same. Maybe if there is in some backwater of the English-speaking world a saloon named "The Dwarf", it too will have its name changed to mollify some small group of pin heads.

This actually isn't unusual. US hockey youth levels were once designated as Mite, Squirt, Peewee, Bantam and Midget but since 2016 these divisions are now called by their ages. What was once a Peewee is an Age 11-12.

Open-wheel midget sprint cars are still a popular form of racing all over the world. Owners, drivers and spectators may not be offended but surely others object.