George Carlin - Euphemisms

music alpha heaters no ladies and gentlemen George Carlin we shake that thank you please thank you thank you very much thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you and thank you thank you thank you thank you and a couple more thank you thank you I'd like to talk a little bit about language tonight you see I don't like euphemisms I don't like language that reflects fear and conceals the truth you know and I've noticed over a long period of time as time goes by people are less and less able to deal with reality Americans can't really handle the truth so they invent soft language to protect themselves and it gets worse with every generation give me an example of what I mean there's a condition in combat when a soldier or a sailor can't take it anymore when he's ready to snap all stressed out during the first world war they called that shell-shocked good simple honest direct language two syllables shell-shocked almost sounds like the guns themselves that was 70 years ago then a generation later we had the Second World War same combat condition was called battle fatigue four syllables now takes a little longer to say doesn't hurt as much fatigue is a nicer word than shock shell shock battle fatigue in 1951 we had the Korean War and Madison Avenue was riding high by then the very same combat condition was called operational exhaustion we're up to eight syllables now and the phrase is completely sterile there's no humanity left in it operational exhaustion sounds like something that might happen to your car then came the Vietnam War that only ended 15 years ago and with all the lies and deceits surrounding Vietnam it's not surprising that the same condition was called post-traumatic stress disorder still eight syllables we still have eight syllables but we've added a hyphen and and and the pain is completely covered by jargon now post-traumatic stress disorder maybe if we still called it shell shock at that time those veterans might have gotten the attention they needed there's a long you know over a period of time there's a retreat from reality sometime during my lifetime toilet paper became bathroom tissue sneakers became running shoes motels became motor lodges house trailers became mobile homes used cars became previously owned transportation and constipation became occasional irregularity when I was a kid if I got sick I went to the hospital to see a doctor now they want me to go to a Wellness Center and consult a health professional poor people used to live in slums now the economically disadvantaged occupy substandard housing in the inner cities they don't have a negative cash flow position they're broke because some of them got fired you know fired management wanted to curtail redundancies in the human resources area so some of these people are no longer viable members of the workforce smug well-fed greedy white people have invented a language to conceal their sins the CIA the CIA doesn't kill people anymore they neutralize somewhere well they depopulate the area the government doesn't lie it engages in disinformation the Pentagon actually refers to and measures nuclear radiation in something they call sunshine units Israeli murderers are called commandos Arab commandos are called terrorists conservatives refer to the Contra killers as freedom fighters well of crime fighters fight crime and fire fighters fight fire what the freedom fighters fight and some of this stuff has gotten really silly I think like like on Airlines before the flight now they say they're going to pre-board which is a curious phrase in itself pre-board those in need of special assistance cripples simple honest direct word there's no shame in that word that I can find in any dictionary in fact it's the word that's used in Bible translations jesus healed the cripples no cripples in this country anymore we now have the physically challenged no one's deaf anymore the hearing-impaired no one's blind we have the partially sighted like psychologists actually refer to ugly people as those with severe appearance deficits and of course no one's stupid they have learning disorders or they're minimally exceptional it's getting so that any day I expect to hear a rape victim referred to as an unwilling sperm recipient and as we all know in this country there are no old people senior citizens and I'm almost used to that one by now you know I mean that's really such a part of the language I can almost handle senior citizens the one I really can't take those when they look at an old guy and they say he's 80 years young 80 years young doesn't that reveal to you a certain fear of aging and I know what that's about I mean I used to talk about my own my own condition and I would say I'm getting older not old older makes it softer easier to take hey I'm getting old but thanks to our fear of death in this country I won't have to die I'll pass away or I'll expire like a magazine subscription if it happens in a hospital they'll say it was a terminal episode insurance companies will refer to it as negative patient care outcome and if it's a result of malpractice they'll call it a therapeutic misadventure the language has gotten so bad it makes me want to vomit not vomit makes me want to engage in an involuntary personal proteins bill

Channel: DannyTechWorld

Views: 1,093,934

Rating: 4.8007169 out of 5

Keywords: 19981003, George, Carlin, Vote, Euphenisms

Id: isMm2vF4uFs

Length: 7min 50sec (470 seconds)

Published: Mon Jul 02 2012