George Carlin’s trail of dirty words lives on in cyberspace
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Comedian George Carlin, who died Sunday, was no techie. His medium was the spoken word. He pushed the envelope on free speech over the broadcast airwaves, with a radio variation of his famous comedy routine, ‘The Seven Words You Can Never Say on TV,’ making him the subject of a major 1978 Supreme Court decision that led to the Federal Communications Commission’s indecency regime.
But Carlin used the Internet to help embrace his historical role in defining the boundaries of good/legal taste on over-the-air TV and radio. His site, georgecarlin.com, features a section (click on the Documents title to find it) devoted to foul language. It includes the banner Los Angeles Times headline trumpeting the 1978 ruling -- ‘Court Bans ‘7 Dirty Words’ ’ -- as well as the entire text of the Supreme Court decision and a list he compiled over the years of 2,443 dirty words.
In introducing his running list, Carlin said that they mostly came from people who considered him the repository for all manner of foul language. He wrote:
During the nearly twenty years since the ‘seven words you can never say on television’ first appeared on the Class Clown album, and especially since the time (1982) when the idea was expanded to include impolite expressions of all types, tv-banned or otherwise, hundreds of people have sent me suggestions on words and phrases which they thought ought to be included on the list. Some sent single items, while others submitted long lists they had obviously taken some trouble to compile. I wish now I had kept a record of their names. Not knowing I would one day attempt this project, my practice at the time was to add the submitted entries to my ‘filth’ folder, send the person a few autographed items (albums, pictures, videos, shirts) in appreciation and discard the original letters. I wish I had handled it differently so that I could give them credit here. But, of course, the real credit belongs to the thousands of people over the centuries who invented these phrases in the first place, folk poets, all. To those who sent me their suggestions, you know who you are, and I thank you from the bottom of my farting clapper.
That last phrase is about as tame as the terms get. Although some are similarly straight from junior high school, the list is mostly an R-rated compendium (so kids, please ask your parents before you check it out). But it lives on as a digital part of Carlin’s legacy.
-- Jim Puzzanghera
Puzzanghera, a Times staff writer, covers tech and media policy from Washington, D.C.
