George Carlin - Euphemisms & political correctness

aaron pryor · 512.7K views · 2016-04-24 · 9:28

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Overview

A George Carlin routine on euphemisms and political correctness, tracing how shell shock became PTSD. The uploader adds context about euphemism in political language.

On Hacker News

Cited in threads about renaming and sanitized language as a classic comedic statement of the case against euphemism.

Recommended by 1 HN people across 1 months · HN mentions 2019–2022

Topics

Stand-up & sketch comedy Language & linguistics Free speech, censorship & civil liberties

What people said

yotamoron · 2021-04 · Strong recommendation
George Carlin says it best (as usual...): [VIDEO] He also said: "Political correctness is fascism pretending to be manners".
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drost · 2022-02 · Reference
This article reminds me off that George Carlin bit on political correctness > 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 shellshock. Simple, honest, direct language. Two syllables: shellshock. Almost sounds like the guns themselves. That was seventy 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. Takes a little longer to say. Doesn’t seem to hurt as much. Fatigue is a nicer word than shock. Shellshock! Battle fatigue. > …Korea, 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. > …the war in Vietnam, which has only been over for about sixteen or seventeen 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’ll bet
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coldtea · 2019-10 · Criticism
George Carlin also said this: [VIDEO] [LINK] It's also not always clear cut who is the real underdog and who the gentrified upper middle class finger-pointing comedian who pretends to be the greater person...
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Sources

Video by aaron pryor, played through YouTube.

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