This was in reaction to the time, in 1966, when comedian Lenny Bruce was arrested for using nine forbidden words. At the time it was all pretty scandalous but both Carlin and Bruce were fighting for the concept of free speech. Just so you know, I, myself have never used these words.
But most of them are popular in the arts. The other night on a talk show I heard Matt Damon say that when they made the film "Good Will Hunting" 20 years ago, they used the F word over one hundred times. (That's one of the words.) Matt justified this by saying that's the way they talked growing up in Boston. Last night I heard another one of the words on an episode of Family Feud.
Should we be protected from words that some of us find offensive? If so, where should we draw the line?
Today we learned that our government is forbidding officials who oversee the budget for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention from using seven words - but not the same seven words George Carlin and Lenny Bruce used. The words the CDC cannot use are:
- Vulnerable
- Entitlement
- Diversity
- Transgender
- Fetus
- Evidence-based
- Science-based
The CDC was given some alternative phrases. For instance instead of "science-based" they may use "science in consideration with community standards and wishes."
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