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Why don’t you check out your mind?
By Me | September 20, 2005
There’s more to George Carlin’s seven dirty words than meets the eye.
Or so you have to deduce from the four page article published in today’s New York Times (registration required).
One inescapable conclusion from this article: if you want your written work to be memorable, pepper it with profanity. Your readers may not remember the plot but they’ll almost certainly remember the swearing.
For the rest of it, I guess having neurscientists and psychologists studying the physiology and the psychology, respectively, of cursing is better than government-funded ketchup studies.
And, in some ways, it’s fun.
Did you know, for example, that these innocuous words used to be considered ultra-nasty swear words: wretch, rascal, scullion, punk, gosh, golly, shucks, meddle (which used to mean to have sex — “Hey, baby, wanna meddle?”)
And then there’s my personal favorite: Jiminy Crickets.
Yes, that’s right. Pinnochio’s little buddy was evidently named after what used to be one of the worst things you could say to somebody.
Shame on you, Walt!
Topics: Social Commentary |
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