George Carlin: George's Best Stuff

You know the trouble is,

Trying to decide

what to call these words man.

I'm trying to decide

what to call this whole thing.

You know what are these words

that I'm talking about?

There just words that we've decided,

sort of decided not to use all the time.

That's about the only thing

you can really say about them for sure.

That they're just some words,

not many either just a few,

that we've decided

well we won't use them all the time.

Sometimes well hell yeah.

Sometimes it's okay

but not all the time.

And there the only words

that seem to have that restriction.

I mean there are a lot of words you can say

whenever you want you know?

Pneumonia.

Nobody gives you a lot...all right you can't

yell it in the hospital a great deal

but what the hell?

There are words that you can say no problem,

topography.

No one has ever gone to jail

for screaming topography

but there are some words

that you can go to jail for.

There are some words

that we just have decided

we will not say all the time.

Sometimes okay.

If you're running through the jungle

chasing somebody that were at war with

you can holler them.

If you're shooting a criminal it's okay.

It's the all American thing.

Dirty fucking crook.

But if you're with the Bishop's wife at lunch

it's better not to ask

for the Goddamn lettuce.

You know what I mean.

It's just like we've decided

there'd be some words,

we won't say all the time.

And I was just trying to find out

which words they were for sure.

All of them.

I wanted a list

cause nobody gives you a list.

That's the problem.

They don't give you a list.

Wouldn't you think it'd be normal

if they didn't want you to say something

and tell you what it is?

Nobody even tells you when you're a kid

what the words are that you're supposed to avoid.

You have to say them

to find out which ones they are.

Shit.

Awe fuck.

That's two.

Awe Ma that's enough trial and error huh?

Please Ma give me a list huh?

All right your six years old now

and here's the list of words

your Dad and I

don't ever want to hear you say.

Awe hey thanks Ma.

Boy that's going to save me an ass kicking or two.

Yeah you never know

what's going to be on the list

cause it's always somebody else's list.

You didn't make that up

somebody told you that shit.

They told you better...

better not say that.

So you gonna...and you don't know

what's going to be on their list.

God.

People's lists even change from day to day.

Some people on Friday night got a list you know

about two or three words.

Sunday morning Goddamn

they made twenty-seven words.

These are the same people two days later.

Different lists.

See you got to kind of watch out

what you're going to believe huh?

The trouble is I was trying to find out

what these words might be

and I wanted to know the ones

that you could never say on television.

I mean the filthy words

that are always filthy.

There are a lot of these little two-way,

double tongued words that have two meanings,

words that there okay part of the time.

I call them like part-time filth.

Some of these words there only 50% dirty.

You have words like ass.

Ass is hardly even a dirty word anymore

but this has a few meanings

that you can't say on television.

That's what I was talking about.

What can you say on television?

That's another one of those places

where we can't use these words all the time

but some of them are alright some of the time.

Ass is all right on television.

You can say on television things like,

Well you've made a perfect ass of yourself tonight.

But you can't say,

Hey let's go get some ass.

Bitch.

Bitch is another word like that.

Same kind of word.

Its only dirty part of the time

depends on what you mean by bitch.

You might be the lady from the San Diego Zoo

visiting one of the Tonight Show's

and you just might have

a bunch of little canines with you there

and one of them is a female and you say,

There's the bitch Johnny.

And it's okay, Fine.

Just don't refer to the singer the same way

that's all.

Is that bitch going to do another number?

Yes.

Animals are fine

on those two-way words

and that's it.

That's what I was trying to find

the words were always dirty

not just part of the time

but completely filth.

Well in looking for these words

I kept finding new categories.

We have so many ways of describing

these dirty words its...

well we have more ways to describe dirty words

than we actually have dirty words.

That seems a little strange to me.

It seems to indicate that somebody

was awfully interested in these words.

They kept referring to them.

They called them bad words.

Dirty,

filthy,

foul,

vile,

vulgar,

course,

in poor taste,

unseemly,

street talk,

gutter talk,

locker room language,

barracks talk,

bawdy, naughty,

saucy,

raunchy,

rude, crude, lude,

lascivious,

indecent,

profane,

obscene,

blue, off color,

risqué,

suggestive,

cursing, cussing, swearing

and all I could think of was

shit, piss, fuck, cunt, cocksucker,

motherfucker and tits.

That's all I have.

Shit, piss, fuck, cunt, cocksucker,

motherfucker and tits

that was my original list.

I knew it wasn't complete

but it was a starter set

you know?

Shit, piss, fuck yes W-B-A-I is the one

who played them.

Shit, piss, fuck, cunt, cocksucker,

motherfucker and tits

now that was the original list.

We've added a few words since then

we've added fart, turd and twat.

And I know there are some other words

that many of you are wondering about

why they haven't been considered,

why they haven't shown up

on the list this far.

We're looking at them all very closely.

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