A Litany for George Carlin in Seven Words

George Carlin, who died of heart failure Sunday at 71, leaves behind not only a series of memorable routines, but a legal legacy: His most celebrated monologue, a frantic, informed riff on those infamous seven words, led to a Supreme Court decision on broadcasting offensive language.Associated Press / June 24, 2008

The Seven Words You Can Never Say On TV
by George Carlin

I love words. I thank you for hearing my words.

I want to tell you something about words that I think is important.

They’re my work, they’re my play, they’re my passion.

Words are all we have, really. We have thoughts but thoughts are fluid.

Then we assign a word to a thought and we’re stuck with that word for that thought, so be careful with words. I like to think that the same words that hurt can heal, it is a matter of how you pick them.

There are some people that are not into all the words.

There are some that would have you not use certain words.

There are 400,000 words in the English language and there are seven of them you can’t say on television. What a ratio that is.

399,993 to seven. They must really be bad. They’d have to be outrageous to be seperated from a group that large. All of you over here, you seven, Bad Words. That’s what they told us they were, remember?

“That’s a bad word!” No bad words. Bad thoughts, bad intentions… and words. You know the seven, don’t you, that you can’t say on television?

“Shit, Piss, Fuck, Cunt, CockSucker, MotherFucker, and Tits”

Those are the heavy seven. Those are the ones that’ll infect your soul, curve your spine, and keep the country from winning the war.

“Shit, Piss, Fuck, Cunt, CockSucker, MotherFucker, and Tits” Wow! …and Tits doesn’t even belong on the list. That is such a friendly sounding word. It sounds like a nickname, right? “Hey, Tits, come here, man. Hey Tits, meet Toots. Toots, Tits. Tits, Toots.” It sounds like a snack, doesn’t it? Yes, I know, it is a snack. I don’t mean your sexist snack. I mean new Nabisco Tits!, and new Cheese Tits, Corn Tits, Pizza Tits, Sesame Tits, Onion Tits, Tater Tits. “Betcha Can’t Eat Just One.”

That’s true. I usually switch off. But I mean, that word does not belong on the list. Actually none of the words belong on the list, but you can understand why some of them are there. I’m not completely insensetive to people’s feelings. I can understand why some of those words got on the list, like CockSucker and MotherFucker. Those are heavyweight words. There is a lot going on there. Besides the literal translation and the emotional feeling.

I mean, they’re just busy words. There’s a lot of syllables to contend with. And those Ks, those are agressive sounds. They just jump out at you like “coCKsuCKer, motherfuCKer. coCKsuCKer, motherfuCKer.”

It’s like an assualt on you. We mentioned Shit earlier, and two of the other 4-letter Anglo-Saxon words are Piss and Cunt, which go together of course. A little accidental humor there. The reason that Piss and Cunt are on the list is because a long time ago, there were certain ladies that said “Those are the two I am not going to say. I don’t mind Fuck and Shit but ‘P’ and ‘C’ are out.”, which led to such
stupid sentences as “Okay you fuckers, I’m going to tinkle now.”

And, of course, the word Fuck. I don’t really, well that’s more accidental humor, I don’t wanna get into that now because I think it takes to long. But I do mean that. I think the word Fuck is a very imprortant word. It is the beginning of life, yet it is a word we use to hurt one another quite often. People much wiser than I am said,
“I’d rather have my son watch a film with two people making love than two people trying to kill one another. I, of course, can agree. It is a great sentence. I wish I knew who said it first. I agree with that but I like to take it a step further.

I’d like to substitute the word Fuck for the word Kill in all of those movie cliches we grew up with. “Okay, Sherrif, we’re gonna Fuck you now, but we’re gonna Fuck you slow.”

So maybe next year I’ll have a whole fuckin’ ramp on the N word. I hope so. Those are the seven you can never say on television, under any circumstanses. You just cannot say them ever ever ever. Not even clinically. You cannot weave them in on the panel with Doc, and Ed, and Johnny. I mean, it is just impossible. Forget tHose seven. They’re out.

But there are some two-way words, those double-meaning words.

Remember the ones you giggled at in sixth grade? “…And the cock CROWED three times” “Hey, tha cock CROWED three times. Ha ha ha ha. Hey, it’s in the bible. Ha ha ha ha. There are some two-way words, like it is okay for Curt Gowdy to say “Roberto Clemente has two balls on him.”, but he can’t say “I think he hurt his balls on that play, Tony. Don’t you? He’s holding them. He must’ve hurt them, by God.” and the other two-way word that goes with that one is Prick. It’s okay if it happens to your finger. You can prick your finger but don’t finger your prick. No,no.

Source. / LyricsBox

Quite a wordsmith, he was. A scholar of the language. I note that he and I are the same age…I had the pleasure of his company one evening in about 1973. He was playing at the Marin Civic Center, around the corner from where I lived.

The Sons of Champlin opened the show. They rented a space across the court from my space and rehearsed, hung out there. We were all good friends. When George approached one of them about perhaps scoring some cocaine, they called me. I happened to have some and proceeded quickly over to the Center not knowing who my customer was. I was ushered in to his dressing room which was cleared of all company as we went through the score procedure. He immediately went to work on the new purchase and the two of us had a short time together, flying in the zone of the leaf.

He got so ready that he went out on stage before the roadies were finished, found a live mike and started his show. No introduction, just started rapping. Needless to say he was hilarious and did a great show. I really enjoyed being around him and became a lifelong fan. He was a genuine wizard.

Gerry / The Rag Blog / June 23, 2008

George Carlin, 71, Irreverent Standup Comedian, Is Dead / by Mel Watkins / New York Times / March 24, 2008

George Carlin Reads More Blogs Than You Do / Interview by Rachel Sklar / March 1, 2008 / The Huffington Post

Religion is Bullshit Video / The Rag Blog

Video highlights from George Carlin’s Career / The Huffington Post

The Rag Blog

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