George Carlin: Doin' It Again Page #6

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I'm brain dead here.

You people got no respect

for the brain dead?

Hey, you got

to be brain dead

to watch Geraldo

in the first place.

You might as well watch him

when you're

clinically brain dead.

There's one other

thing I thought about

concerning this

comatose thing,

and this might

help you someday.

This little

piece of information

might come in handy

sometime in the future

if you're in

this circumstance.

If you knew a family,

if you knew a family

and one of them

was a homosexual

and he was in an

automobile accident

and he was comatose,

you could always comfort

that family by saying,

well, look at it this way,

he was a fruit,

now he's a vegetable.

Listen,

at least he's still

in the produce section.

Now I probably got some

other group pissed off at me

because I said fruit.

There's a different group

to get pissed off

at you in this country

for everything you're

not supposed to say.

Can't say fruit,

can't say f*ggot,

can't say queer,

can't say Nancy boy,

can't say pansy.

Can't say n*gger, boogie,

jig, jiggaboo, skinhead,

jungle bunny, moolie,

moolie yan or schwarz.

Can't say yid, heeb, zeeb,

kike, mackie, dego, ginny,

wop, ginzo, greaser,

greaseball, spick, beaner,

oya, tiger, PR, Mick,

donkey, turkey, limey,

frog, squarehead, kraut,

jerry, Hun, chink, jap,

nip, slope, slopehead,

zip, zipper head, gook.

There is absolutely

nothing wrong...

There is absolutely

nothing wrong

with any of those words

in and of themselves.

They're only words.

It's the context that counts.

It's the user.

It's the intention

behind the words

that makes them good or bad.

The words are

completely neutral

the words are innocent.

I get tired of people

talking about bad words

and bad language.

Bullshit.

It's the context that

makes them good or bad,

the context that makes

them good or bad.

For instance,

you take the word n*gger.

There is absolutely

nothing wrong

with the word n*gger

in and of itself.

It's the racist

a**hole that's using it

that you ought to

be concerned about.

We don't care when Richard

Pryor or Eddie Murphy says it.

Why?

Because we know

they're not racists.

They're n*ggers.

Context.

Context.

We don't mind their context

because we know

they're black.

Hey, I know I'm Whitey,

the blue-eyed devil patio,

fake gray boy, honkie,

motherf***er myself.

Don't bother my ass.

They're only words.

You can't be afraid of

words that speak the truth,

even if it's an

unpleasant truth

like the fact

that there's a bigot

and a racist in

every living room

on every street corner

in this country.

I don't like words

that hide the truth.

I don't like words

that conceal reality.

I don't like euphemisms

or euphemistic language.

And American English

is loaded with euphemisms,

because Americans

have a lot of trouble

dealing with reality.

Americans have trouble

facing the truth,

so they invent the

kind of a soft language

to protect themselves from it.

And it gets worse

with every generation.

For some reason it just

keeps getting worse.

I'll give you

an example of that.

There's a

condition in combat,

most people know about it.

It's when a fighting

person's nervous system

has been stressed to its

absolute peak and maximum,

can't take any more input.

The nervous system

has either snapped

or is about to snap.

In the First World War

that condition was

called shell shock.

Simple, honest,

direct language,

two syllables.

Shell shock.

Almost sounds like

the guns themselves.

That was 70 years ago.

Then a whole

generation went by,

and the Second World War

came along

and the very

same combat condition

was called battle fatigue.

Four syllables now,

it takes a little

longer to say,

doesn't seem to hurt as much.

Fatigue is a

nicer word than shock.

Shell shock,

battle fatigue.

Then we had the war

in Korea in 1950,

Madison Avenue was

riding high by that time,

and the very

same combat condition

was called

Operational Exhaustion.

Hey, we're up to

eight syllables now,

and the humanity

has been squeezed

completely out

of the phrase,

it's totally sterile now.

Operational Exhaustion.

Sounds like something

that might

happen to your car.

Then of course came

the war in Viet Nam,

which has only been over

for about 16 or 17 years.

And thanks to

the lies and deceits

surrounding that war,

I guess it's no surprise

that the very same condition

was called Post-Traumatic

Stress Disorder.

Still eight syllables,

but we've added a hyphen,

and the pain is completely

buried under jargon,

Post-Traumatic

Stress Disorder.

I bet you if we'd have still

been calling it shell shock,

some of them

Viet Nam veterans

might have gotten the attention

they needed at the time.

But it didn't happen,

and one of the reasons is

because we were

using that soft language,

that language that

takes the life out of life.

And it is a

function of time,

it does keep getting worse,

give you another example.

Sometime during my life,

sometime during my life

toilet paper

became bathroom tissue.

I wasn't notified of this,

no one asked me

if I agreed with it.

It just happened.

Toilet paper

became bathroom tissue.

Sneakers became

running shoes.

False teeth became

dental appliances.

Medicine became medication.

Information became

directory assistance.

The dump

became the landfill.

Car crashes became

automobile accidents.

Partly cloudy

became partly sunny.

Motels became motor lodges.

House trailers

became mobile homes.

Used cars became previously

owned transportation.

Room service became

guest room dining.

And constipation became

occasional irregularity.

When I was a little kid,

if I got sick they wanted

me to go to the hospital

and see the doctor.

Now they want me to go

to a health

maintenance organization,

or a wellness center

to consult a healthcare

delivery professional.

Poor people used

to live in slums.

Now the economically

disadvantaged

occupies substandard

housing in the inner cities.

And they're broke.

They're broke.

They don't have a negative

cash flow position,

they're f***ing broke.

Because a lot of

them were fired.

You know, fired,

management wanted to

curtail redundancies

in the human resources area,

so many people are no longer

viable members

of the workforce.

Smug, greedy,

well-fed white people

have invented a language

to conceal their sins,

it's as simple as that.

The CIA doesn't

kill anybody any more.

They neutralize people,

or they depopulate the area.

The government doesn't lie,

it engages in disinformation.

The Pentagon actually

measures nuclear radiation

and something they

call Sunshine Units.

Israeli murderers

are called Commandos.

Arab Commandos

are called terrorists.

Contra killers are

called Freedom fighters.

Well, if crime fighters

fight crime

and firefighters fight fire,

what do

Freedom Fighters fight?

They never mention that

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