The Lesson of Carlins Dirty Words – The Wall Street Journal

Now everyone is walking around wondering what they can say and censoring themselves and, as a result, lowering the standards of discussion and thought. Sounds like 2022, but the guy who said this was arrested 50 years ago this week on a charge of disorderly conduct, profanity. Weve come a long way but seem to be looping back.

Comedian George Carlin was performing at Summerfest in Milwaukee on July 21, 1972, doing his then-current routine noting the absurdity that there are more ways to describe dirty words than there are dirty words: dirty, bad, filthy, foul, vile, vulgar, off-color, blue, naughty, bawdy, saucy, raunchy, street language, gutter talk, locker-room talk, barracks language, indecent, in poor taste, suggestive, cursing, cussing, swearing, profanity, obscenity, and all I could think of were... He then listed what will forever be known as the seven words you cant say on television. I wont repeat them, but I bet many of you can rattle them off from memory.

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The Lesson of Carlins Dirty Words - The Wall Street Journal