Terry L. Dean tdean1d@netscape.net
George Carlin would roll over in his grave if he knew how things have changed since he delivered his classic routine, "Seven Dirty Words You Can Never Say On Television." Wait ... he's not dead yet. But television has definitely changed. Carlin's 1973 routine was groundbreaking, poignant, thought-provoking and well, dirty. How dirty? You'll have to find Carlin's 1973 album "Class Clown" to hear the whole bit or search the Internet for a text version of the routine ( I found one at http://staff.dstc.edu.au/bill/carlin.html).
It was so dirty that when it was played on the air by New York City's Pacifica radio station, WBAI, in October 1973, the Federal Communications Commission sent an order down forbidding the broadcast of such language. The station appealed the order to the District of Columbia Circuit Court of Appeals and won a reversal. The FCC then appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court, where the original order was upheld. So just what are those seven dirty words, and why can't you say them on television?
Well, let's put it this way. One rhymes with spit; the second rhymes with hiss; the third rhymes with muck; and the next rhymes with hunt. The fourth sounds like sockchucker. One sort of sounds like monstertrucker. And the seventh ... well, it's a slang term for breasts ... no, not that one ... no ... the four-letter one ... YEAP, that's it. Those seven words are still on the books. Television censors throughout the years made sure no one on television said those words. No sportscaster could slip and say, "Oh, spit! Did you see how far he hit that monstertrucker," without hearing from the networks or the FCC.
The rules are a little looser today. But is there such a thing as "dirty words" on television anymore? You can say a lot more on free television now then you could even 10 years ago. Take "NYPD Blue." Det. Sipowicz can't say to a perp, "OK, you no good sockchucker! Where's the muckin gun!" But he's been calling the bad guys "no good humps" since the first season. Hump. Is that a dirty word? He did call the guy who shot him a "turd." That's surely got to be a dirty word. If not, then why is spit? Spit, turd. Turd, spit. They both get the same point across, if you ask me. In one show, he actually said, "I gotta go take a hiss." So that's two out of the seven I guess you can say now.
And I swear I heard one of the ladies on "Designing Women"
say the word - pits ... we'll call them pits - "PITS" in one episode. So we're down to four. You probably can't say pits, but you can reference them as "hooters", "juggs", "boobs"rs," "juggs," "boobs", "ta-tas," "melons" and even "the twins." The twins. You know, that actually has a pleasant sound to it. "Hello Mom, meet your new stepdaughter and her lovely twins - Buffy and Jodie." But seriously.
As for paid cable, and even some cable that you don't pay for, throw all the rules out the window. You can basically say those seven words and a few dozen more. On "The Sopranos," for example, it's like a symphony of dirty words. "You no good sockchucking, monstertrucking piece of spit!" Cable movies, series, specials - they all can pretty much get away with it. But again, what constitutes a dirty word? As Carlin noted in another classic routine, there are more words to describe and substitute for dirty words than there are actual "dirty words."
You couldn't say penis for many years on television, and any other slang term to describe it - sock, AndyDickNixon, TigarWoodyHarrelson. But you can make references to the male member all day long now. "The little soldier," "Mr. Willy," "the captain." Even terms like "shlong" have slipped into a primetime show every now and then. And as I was writing this, I kid you not, someone told me another term, which I've never heard on T.V., is "the frank and the beans," and it took me all of 30 seconds to figure that one out. I don't know about you, but dammit, that sounds a heck of a lot dirtier than sock.
Now, people may be wondering what the point of this column is. It's this: words are interchangeable and mean different things to different people. When it comes to words that are considered profane, blue, vulgar, risqué, terse or vile, how can we intelligently say, "this word is dirty, but these are not." We don't. We should allow the context to dictate what is and is not appropriate language. The truth is, all of these words are dirty, just half of the time, as Carlin puts it. A cock is a bird; Dick is short for Richard; a pussy is either a cat or a willow; and a prick is what you sometimes do to your finger, and so on. None of those references are dirty. But if I say, "My cock was hurt in a fight, and I had to take it to the hospital," am I speaking satirically or am I talking about my rooster that got its butt kicked by another rooster?
Let context and intelligent thinking guide us, not political correctness, knee-jerk censors, whiny moral zealots and extreme religious nuts. And if you think of some more dirty words, send them to me
The Unusual Suspect appears periodically. Terry is a senior in journalism. His views do not necessarily reflect those of the Daily Egyptian.
Published on 11/17/05; 12:24:44 PM
