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A euphemism is a generally harmless word, name, or phrase that substitutes an offensive or suggestive one.^[1] Some euphemisms intend to amuse, while others intend to give positive appearances to negative events or even mislead entirely. Euphemisms also often take the place of profanity. The opposite of euphemism roughly equates to dysphemism.

Etymology & Usage[link]

The word euphemism comes from the Greek word ευφημία (euphemia), meaning "the use of words of good omen", which in turn is derived from the Greek root-words eu (ευ), "good/well" + pheme (φήμι) "speech/speaking". The eupheme was originally a word or phrase used in place of a religious word or phrase that should not be spoken aloud; etymologically, the eupheme is the opposite of the blaspheme (evil-speaking). Primary examples of taboo words requiring the use of a euphemism are names for deities, such as Persephone, Hecate, or Nemesis. The term euphemism itself was used as a euphemism by the ancient Greeks, meaning "to keep a holy silence" (speaking well by not speaking at all).

Historical linguistics has revealed traces of taboo deformations in many languages. Several are known to have occurred in Indo-European languages, including the presumed original Proto-Indo-European words for bear (*rkso), wolf (*wlk^wo), and deer (originally, hart—although the word hart remained commonplace in parts of England until the 20th century as is witnessed by the widespread use of the pub sign The White Hart). In different Indo-European languages, each of these words has a difficult etymology because of taboo deformations — a euphemism was substituted for the original, which no longer occurs in the language. An example is the Slavic root for bear — *medu-ed-, which means "honey eater". Names in Germanic languages—including English—are derived from the color brown. Another example in English is donkey replacing the old Indo-European-derived word ass. The word dandelion (literally, tooth of lion, referring to the shape of the leaves) is another example, being a substitute for pissenlit, meaning "wet the bed", a possible reference to the fact that dandelion was used as a diuretic. The Talmud describes the blind as having "much light" (Aramaic סגי נהור)^[2] and this phrase—sagee nahor—is the Modern Hebrew for euphemism.

In some languages of the Pacific, using the name of a deceased chief is taboo. Among indigenous Australians, it is forbidden to use the name, image, or audio-visual recording of the deceased; the Australian Broadcasting Corporation now publishes a warning to indigenous Australians when using names, images or audio-visual recordings of people who have died.^[3]

Since people are often named after everyday things, this leads to the swift development of euphemisms. New names are frequently required when an old one becomes taboo. These languages have a very high rate of vocabulary change.^[4]

In a similar manner, in imperial China, writers of classical Chinese texts were expected to avoid using characters contained within the name of the currently ruling emperor as a sign of respect. In these instances, the relevant characters were replaced by synonyms. (This practice may provide a fairly accurate means of dating a document.)

The common names of illicit drugs, and the plants used to obtain them, often undergo a process similar to taboo deformation, because new terms are devised in order to discuss them secretly in the presence of others. This process often occurs in English (e.g. speed or crank for meth) and is really slang formation, as it often is not intended to substitute a softer term. It occurs even more in Spanish, e.g., the deformation of names for cannabis: mota (literally, "something that moves" on the black market), grifa (literally, "something coarse to the touch"), marijuana (a female personal name, María Juana), cáñamo (the original Spanish name for the plant, derived from the Latin genus name Cannabis). All four of these names are still used in various parts of the Hispanophone world, although cáñamo ironically has the least underworld connotation, and is often used to describe industrial hemp, or legitimate medically-prescribed cannabis.

Categorization[link]

Euphemisms can be created phonetically (also called a "Minced Oath"), semantically (using analogy to suggest the meanings), or through slang.

Phonetic euphemisms or minced oaths[link]

Phonetic euphemism is used to replace profanities, giving them the intensity of a mere interjection.

• Shortening or "clipping" the term ("Jeez" for Jesus, "What the-" for "What the hell")
• Using the first letter ("SOB", "What the Eff"). Sometimes, the word "word" is added after it ("F word", "S word", "B word"). Also, the letter can be phonetically respelled, for example, the word "piss" was shortened to "pee" in this way.
• Mispronunciations, such as "What the fudge", "Oh my gosh", "Frickin", "Darn" "Oh, shoot", "Be-yotch", etc.
• Rhymes, such as "What the duck", "Oh, snap!", "Cheese and Rice"

Semantic euphemisms[link]

These are used to describe things relating to religion, excretion, sex, racism, death, drugs, and disability.

• Abstractions (it for excrement, the situation or "a girl in trouble" for pregnancy, going to the other side for death, do it or come together in reference to a sexual act, tired and emotional for drunkenness)
• Ambiguities (for example, the phrases "go to the bathroom" or "sleep together")
• Understatements ("sleep" for die, "hurt" for injured, "candy" for drugs, etc.)
• Metaphors, such as "beat the meat," "choke the chicken," "take a dump", "drain the main vein", etc.
• Comparisons, like "wiener" for "penis", "buns" for "butt", "weed" for marijuana/cannabis.
• Metonymy ("lose a person" for dying, "men's room" for men's restroom, see abstractions.)

Slang[link]

• Using a personal name, such as "Willy" or "Dick" for penis, "Fanny" for "buttocks" (in America) or "vulva" (in UK)
• Using a less harsh term with similar meaning. For instance, "messed up" is a euphemism for "screwed up", which in turn is a euphemism for "fucked up"
• Other slang, such as "pot" for marijuana, "laid" for sexual intercourse

Others[link]

• Using an adjective to refer to an element of a person, rather than using a noun to define them, for example, "...makes her look slutty" instead of "...is a slut"
• Reverse understatements or litotes, such as "not so big" for "short", "not exactly a supermodel" for "ugly", or "not true" for "a lie"
• Using a positive context ("Inspired by" instead of "ripped off of" or "plagiarized", "streamlining the workforce" for "laying off/firing (workers)").
• Using the term "challenged". The most common example of this is using "mentally challenged" to describe mental retards. There are many others, though, from "vertically challlenged" for short people, to "vocally challenged" for those with mediocre singing voices.
• Using the word "bleep" (an onomatopoea for the censored tone), a common word like "sofa", or even the word "profane" or "euphemism", to replace profanity.

There is some disagreement over whether certain terms are or are not euphemisms. For example, sometimes the phrase visually impaired is labeled as a politically correct euphemism for blind. However, visual impairment can be a broader term, including, for example, people who have partial sight in one eye, or even those with uncorrected mild to moderate poor vision, a group that would be excluded by the word blind.

There are three antonyms of euphemism: dysphemism, cacophemism, and power word. The first can be either offensive or merely humorously deprecating with the second one generally used more often in the sense of something deliberately offensive. The last is used mainly in arguments to make a point seem more correct.

Evolution[link]

Euphemisms may be formed in a number of ways. Periphrasis or circumlocution is one of the most common — to "speak around" a given word, implying it without saying it. Over time, circumlocutions become recognized as established euphemisms for particular words or ideas.

To alter the pronunciation or spelling of a taboo word (such as a swear word) to form a euphemism is known as taboo deformation. There is an astonishing number of taboo deformations in English, of which many refer to the infamous four-letter words. In American English, words that are unacceptable on television, such as fuck, may be represented by deformations such as freak — even in children's cartoons. Some examples of rhyming slang may serve the same purpose — to call a person a berk sounds less offensive than to call a person a cunt, though berk is short for Berkeley Hunt, which rhymes with cunt.

Bureaucracies such as the military and large corporations frequently spawn euphemisms of a more deliberate nature. Organizations coin doublespeak expressions to describe objectionable actions in terms that seem neutral or inoffensive. For example, a term used in the past for contamination by radioactive isotopes was Sunshine units.^[5]

Military organizations kill people, sometimes deliberately and sometimes by mistake; in doublespeak, the first may be called neutralizing the target or Employing Kinetic Effects and the second collateral damage. Violent destruction of non-state enemies may be referred to as pacification. Two common terms when a soldier is accidentally killed (buys the farm) by their own side are friendly fire or blue on blue (BOBbing) — bought the farm has its own interesting history. Its origins might come from the life insurance payout or a death benefit payment that would permit the soldier's family to pay off the mortgage on real property, such as a farm, or from "the farm" being a slang reference to a burial plot. In World War I the slang "become a landowner" meant to "inhabit a cemetery plot".^[6] The "farm" is a euphemism for property, and "buying" it is a euphemism for the Servicemembers' Group Life Insurance benefit payment that should be sufficient to outright pay for the soldier's "farm." In 2010, the United States administration of President Barack Obama approved a "targeted killing" of a man wanted by the Central Intelligence Agency, effectively launching this term as an official alternative to legal assassination.^[7][8]

Execution is an established euphemism referring to the act of putting a person to death, with or without judicial process. It originally referred to the execution, i.e., the carrying out, of a death warrant, which is an authorization to a sheriff, prison warden, or other official to put a named person to death. In legal usage, execution can still refer to the carrying out of other types of orders; for example, in U.S. legal usage, a writ of execution is a direction to enforce a civil money judgment by seizing property. Likewise, lethal injection itself may be considered a euphemism for putting the convict to death by poisoning.

Abortion originally meant premature birth, and came to mean birth before viability. The term "abort" was extended to mean any kind of premature ending, such as aborting the launch of a rocket. Euphemisms have developed around the original meaning. Abortion, by itself, came to mean "induced abortion" or "elective abortion" exclusively. Hence the parallel term spontaneous abortion, an "act of nature", was dropped in favor of the more neutral-sounding miscarriage.

Industrial unpleasantness such as pollution may be toned down to outgassing or runoff — descriptions of physical processes rather than their damaging consequences. Some of this may simply be the application of precise technical terminology in the place of popular usage, but beyond precision, the advantage of technical terminology may be its lack of emotional undertones and the likelihood that the general public (at least initially) will not recognize it for what it really is; the disadvantage being the lack of real-life context. Terms like waste and wastewater are also avoided in favor of terms such as byproduct, recycling, reclaimed water and effluent. In the oil industry, oil-based drilling muds were simply renamed organic phase drilling muds, where organic phase is a euphemism for "oil." However, this kind of "euphemism" is not necessarily malicious in the sense that labeling an individual byproduct stream "waste" can have severe legal consequencies, such as additional taxes or prohibition of transport or export. In medicine, magnetic resonance imaging has replaced nuclear magnetic resonance in order to avoid frightening patients with the word nuclear (even though MRI scanning does not involve the use of harmful ionizing radiation).

Euphemism treadmill[link]

Euphemisms often evolve over time into taboo words themselves, through a process described by W.V.O. Quine,^[9] and more recently dubbed the "euphemism treadmill" by Steven Pinker,^[10] discussed in his The Blank Slate (2003)^[11] and The Stuff of Thought (2007)^[12] This is the well-known linguistic process known as pejoration or semantic change.

Words originally intended as euphemisms may lose their euphemistic value, acquiring the negative connotations of their referents. In some cases, they may be used mockingly and become dysphemisms. Euphemisms related to disabilities have been prone to this (see below).

• In his remarks on the ever-changing London slang, made in Down and Out in Paris and London, George Orwell mentioned both the euphemism treadmill and the dysphemism treadmill. He did not use these now-established terms, but observed and commented on the respective processes as early as in 1933.
• Where the words lavatory or toilet were deemed inappropriate, they were sometimes replaced with bathroom or water closet, which in turn became simply restroom or W.C. These are also examples of geographic concentration: the term restroom is an Americanism rarely used outside the United States,^[13] while washroom is a Canadian euphemism.^[14]
  The term W.C. was previously quite popular in the United Kingdom, but is passing out of favor there, while becoming more popular in France, Germany, the Netherlands and Hungary as the polite term of choice.^{[citation needed]} Ironically, Toilet is itself a euphemism.

Subject matter[link]

Disability and handicap[link]

Connotations easily change over time. Idiot, imbecile, and moron were once neutral terms for a developmentally delayed adult with the mental age comparable to a toddler, preschooler, and primary school child, respectively.^[15] In time negative connotations tend to crowd out neutral ones, so the phrase mentally retarded was pressed into service to replace them.^[16] Mentally retarded, too, has come to be considered inappropriate by some, because the word retarded came to be commonly used as an insult of a person, thing, or idea. As a result, new terms like mentally challenged, with an intellectual disability, learning difficulties and special needs have widely replaced retarded.

A similar progression occurred with the following terms for persons with physical handicaps being adopted by some people:

lame → crippled → spastic → handicapped → disabled → physically challenged → differently abled → People with Disabilities

Euphemisms can also serve to recirculate words that have passed out of use because of negative connotation. The word lame from above, having faded from the vernacular, was revitalized as a slang word generally meaning "not living up to expectations" or "boring." The connotation of a euphemism can also be subject-specific.

In the early 1960s, Major League Baseball franchise owner and promoter Bill Veeck, who was missing part of a leg, argued against the then-favored euphemism handicapped, saying he preferred crippled because it was merely descriptive and did not carry connotations of limiting one's capability the way handicapped (and all of its subsequent euphemisms) seemed to do (Veeck as in Wreck, chapter "I'm Not Handicapped, I'm Crippled"). Later, comedian George Carlin gave a famous monologue of how he thought euphemisms can undermine appropriate attitudes towards serious issues such as the evolving terms describing the medical problem of the cumulative mental trauma of soldiers in high-stress situations:^[17]

shell shock (World War I) → battle fatigue (World War II) → operational exhaustion (Korean War) → posttraumatic stress disorder (Vietnam War)

He contended that, as the name of the condition became more complicated and seemingly arcane, sufferers of this condition have been taken less seriously as people with a serious illness, and were given poorer treatment as a result. He also contended that Vietnam veterans would have received the proper care and attention they needed were the condition still called shell shock. In the same routine, he echoed Bill Veeck's opinion that crippled was a perfectly valid term (and noted that early English translations of the Bible seemed to have no qualms about saying that Jesus "healed the cripples").

Similarly, spastic was once a neutral descriptor of a sufferer of muscular hypertonicity in British English, but playground use of spastic (and variants such as spaz and spacker) as an insult led to the term being regarded by some as offensive. While the term was developing into an insult in British English, it was evolving in a radically different fashion in American English. In the U.S., spastic or spaz became a synonym for clumsiness, whether physical or mental, and nerdiness, and is very often used in a self-deprecating manner.

The difference between the British and American connotations of spastic was starkly shown in 2006 when golfer Tiger Woods used spaz to describe his putting in that year's Masters. The remark went completely unnoticed in America, but caused a major uproar in the UK.^[18]

Profanity[link]

Profane words and expressions in the English language are commonly taken from three areas: religion, excretion, and sex. Racism and sexism are a growing influence on profanities. While profanities themselves have been around for centuries, their limited use in public and by the media has only slowly become socially acceptable, and there are still many expressions that are out of place in polite conversation. One influence on the current tolerance of such language may be the frequency of its use on prime-time television. The word damn (and most other religious profanity in the English language) has long lost its shock value, and as a consequence, bowdlerizations of it (e.g., dang, darn-it) have taken on a very stodgy feeling. Euphemisms for male masturbation such as "spanking the monkey" or "choke the chicken" are used often among some people to avoid embarrassment in public.^{[citation needed]} Excretory profanity such as piss and shit in some cases may be acceptable among informal^{[citation needed]} friends (while they are almost never acceptable in formal relationships or public use); euphemisms such as Number One and Number Two may be preferred for use with children.^{[citation needed]} Most sexual terms and expressions, even technical ones, either remain unacceptable for general use or have undergone radical rehabilitation.^{[citation needed]}

Religion[link]

Euphemisms for deities as well as for religious practices and artifacts have been recorded since the earliest writings. Protection of sacred names, rituals, and concepts from the uninitiated has always given rise to euphemisms, whether it be for exclusion of outsiders or the retention of power among the select. Examples from the Egyptians and every other Western religion abound.

Euphemisms for God and Jesus, such as gosh and gee, are used by Christians to avoid taking the name of God in a vain oath, which would violate one of the Ten Commandments. (Exodus 20)

Jews consider the tetragrammaton—YHWH, the four-letter name of God as written in the Torah—to be of such great holiness that it was never to be pronounced as spelled, except in the Temple by the High Priest on Yom Kippur, the holiest day in the year. [Aryeh Kaplan, Meditation and Kabballa p. 134] (The pronunciation used in the Temple has been forgotten.) At all other times, when praying or reading from scripture, Jews say the word Adonai ("my Lords") in place of the letters. However, outside of prayer and scriptural contexts, traditional Jews will not pronounce the name Adonai, but replace it, typically with the word HaShem, which literally means, "The Name". The other name of God frequently used in the bible, Elohim (אלוהים)—"Powers"—is also not pronounced as written except in formal, religious use; in other contexts, devout Jews typically change one of its letters to Elokim (אלוקים). Other names of God used in Jewish speech and writing, such as HaMakom (המקום)—"The Place"—or 'HaKadosh Baruch Hu' (הקדוש ברוך הוא) "The Holy One, Blessed is he" can be pronounced in any context. Whether they originated as euphemisms is not clear, but they are used as such, although they are also used in formal prayer. The respect Jews show for the name of God has created, and continues to create, written euphemisms in English. That is, Orthodox Jews usually will not write out the word "God", but instead spell it "G-d." Recently, some have begun making a similar change to the spelling of the euphemism haShem (discussed above). It is written "haSh-m."

Euphemisms for hell, damnation, and the devil, on the other hand, are often used to avoid invoking the power or drawing the attention of the adversary. The most famous in the latter category is the expression what the dickens and its variants, which does not refer to the famed British writer but instead was a popular euphemism for Satan in its time. In questions, "what the hell" may be replaced by "what the heck", and in directive speech "get the hell out" is sometimes replaced by "get the heck out".

In times past, profanity relating to Jesus' body were sometimes used, such as "God's Wounds!" By the time of Chaucer, this was reduced to "'swounds"—as spoken by characters such as the Miller—and since then has worked its way into common language as "zounds," a term now considered too stodgy to be any kind of curse. Yet the same Medieval notions may continue intact in other languages, for example rany boskie (literally "God's wounds"), an extremely common mild curse in modern Polish.

Excretion[link]

The abbreviation BS, or the word bull, often replaces the word bullshit in polite society. (The term bullshit itself generally means lies or nonsense, and not the literal "shit of a bull", making it a dysphemism.)

What is currently known as a toilet, has been known by a number of previous euphemisms "..The Honest Jakes or Privy has graduated via Offices to the final horror of Toilet..."^[19] There are any number of lengthier periphrases for excretion used to excuse oneself from company, such as to powder one's nose, to see a man about a dog (or horse), etc. In the Bible, to cover one's feet referred to excretion.^{[citation needed]}

Sex[link]

The Latin term pudendum and the Greek term αιδοίον (aidoion) for the genitals literally mean "shameful thing". Groin, crotch, and loins refer to a larger region of the body, but are euphemistic when used to refer to the genitals. The word masturbate is derived from Latin, the word manus meaning hand and the word sturbare meaning to defile. In pornographic stories, the words rosebud and starfish are often used as euphemisms for anus, generally in the context of anal sex.

Sexual intercourse was once a euphemism derived from the more general term intercourse by itself, which simply meant "meeting" but now is normally used as a synonym for the longer phrase, thus making the town of Intercourse, Pennsylvania, a subject of jokes in modern usage.

The "baseball metaphors for sex" are perhaps the most famous and widely-used set of polite euphemisms for sex and relationship behavior in the U.S. The metaphors encompass terms like "hitting it off" for a good start to relationship, "Striking out" for being unlucky with a love interest, and "running the bases" for progressing sexually in a relationship. The "bases" themselves, from first to third, stand for various levels of sexual activity from French kissing to "petting", itself a euphemism for manual genital stimulation, all of which is short of "scoring" or "coming home", sexual intercourse. "Hitting a home run" describes sex during the first date, "batting both ways" (also "switch-hitting") or "batting for the other team" describes bisexuality or homosexuality respectively, and "stealing bases" refers to initiating new levels of sexual contact without invitation. Baseball-related euphemisms also abound for the "equipment"; "Bat and balls" are a common reference to the male genitalia, while "glove" or "mitt" can refer to the female anatomy. Among gay men, "pitcher" is sometimes used to mean a "top", while "catcher" means a "bottom".

There are many euphemisms for birth control devices, sometimes even propagated by the manufacturers: Condoms are known as "rubbers", "sheaths", "love gloves", "diving suits", "raincoats", "French letters", "Jimmy Caps", "Johnnies" (in Ireland and to a lesser degree Britain) etc.

Euphemisms are also common in reference to sexual orientations and lifestyles. For example in the movie Closer, the character played by Jude Law uses the euphemism "He valued his privacy" for being gay. Other examples are being a 'lover of musical theatre' or a 'confirmed bachelor'. The term 'confirmed bachelor' originally referred to a man who had "sworn off" traditional relationships for reasons unrelated to sexual orientation; such a person may today be known as a 'serial bachelor' if they remain sexually active, or a 'sexual hermit' if they abstain from romantic or sexual contact entirely.

As an aside, the use of euphemisms for sexual activity has grown under the pressure of recent rulings by the U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC) regarding what constitutes "decent" on-air broadcast speech. The FCC included many well known euphemisms in its lists of banned terms but indicated that even new and unknown coinages might be considered indecent once it became clear what they referenced. George Carlin's "Seven Words You Can't Say On TV" evolved into the "Incomplete List of Impolite Words", available in text and audio form, and contains hundreds of euphemisms and dysphemisms to genitalia, the act of having sex, various forms of sex, sexual orientations, etc. that have all become too pejorative for polite conversation, including such notables as "getting your pole varnished" and "eating the tuna taco".

Racism and sexism[link]

Racism and sexism are also common sources of profanity, and one of the few categories producing new profanities. One example is bitch, a slur often used for women, while nigger, a slur for black people, was not considered a profanity at all as recently as the 1950s. Such profanities are often re-appropriated by the group targeted and marginalized, and used as a way of reversing the negative stigma associated with the word. For example, some African-Americans will often call each other nigga.

Profanity itself[link]

In the Spanish language, the word maldición, literally meaning "a curse" or an evil spell, is occasionally used as an interjection of lament or anger, but not necessarily to replace any of several Spanish profanities that would otherwise be used in that same context. The same is true in Italian with the word maledizione and in Portuguese with the word maldição.

In Greek, the word κατάρα "curse" is found, although βρισιά, from ύβρις (hubris) is more commonly used, and in English, an exclamation that is used in a similar style is curses, although it is these days less common. The stereotyped "Perils of Pauline" silent film might have the villain tying his victim to a railroad track. When the hero rescues the heroine, the card might say, "Curses! Foiled again!" in place of whatever cursing the character presumably uttered.

The English language phrase "Pardon my French" is also sometimes used as a euphemism for profanity.

In Ernest Hemingway's novel For Whom the Bell Tolls, swear words are replaced by the words "unprintable" and "obscenity", even though the characters are actually speaking Spanish that has been translated into English for the reader (in Spanish, foul language is used freely even when its equivalent is censored in English). These replacements were not performed at the publisher's behest, but instead by Hemingway's choice.

In Wes Anderson's film Fantastic Mr. Fox, the replacement of swear words by the word "cuss" became a humorous motif throughout the film.

Death and murder[link]

This unreferenced section requires citations to ensure verifiability.

The English language contains numerous euphemisms related to dying, death, burial, and the people and places that deal with death. The practice of using euphemisms for death is likely to have originated with the magical belief that to speak the word "death" was to invite death; where to "draw Death's attention" is the ultimate bad fortune — a common theory holds that death is a taboo subject in most English-speaking cultures for precisely this reason. It may be said that one is not dying, but fading quickly because the end is near. People who have died are referred to as having passed away or passed or departed. Kick the bucket seems innocuous until one considers an explanation that has been proposed for the idiom: that a suicidal hanging victim must kick the bucket out from under his own feet during his suicide. Deceased is a euphemism for "dead", and sometimes the deceased is said to have gone to a better place, but this is used primarily among the religious with a concept of Heaven. Was taken to Jesus implies salvation specifically for Christians, but met his Maker may imply some judgment, content implied or unknown, by God. In the Bible, especially in the books of Kings and Chronicles, a deceased king is said to have "slept [or rested] with his fathers" if he received a proper burial.

Some Christians often use phrases such as gone to be with the Lord or called to higher service (this latter expression being particularly prevalent in the Salvation Army along with "promoted to glory") or "graduated" to express their belief that physical death is not the end, but the beginning of the fuller realization of redemption.

Orthodox Christians often use the euphemism fallen asleep or fallen asleep in the Lord, which reflects Orthodox beliefs concerning death and resurrection. Greeks in particular are apt to refer to the deceased as "the blessed", "the forgiven", or "the absolved" ones, in the belief that the dead person will be counted among the faithful at the Last Judgement.

The dead body entices many euphemisms, some polite and some profane, as well as dysphemisms such as worm food, dead meat, or simply a stiff. Modern rhyming slang contains the expression brown bread. The corpse was once referred to as the shroud (or house or tenement) of clay, and modern funerary workers use terms such as the loved one (title of a novel about Hollywood undertakers by Evelyn Waugh) or the dear departed. (They themselves have given up the euphemism funeral director for grief therapist, and hold arrangement conferences with relatives.) Among themselves, mortuary technicians often refer to the corpse as the client. A recently dead person may be referred to as "the late John Doe". The term cemetery for "graveyard" is a borrowing from Greek, where it was a euphemism, literally meaning 'sleeping place'. The term undertaker (for the person responsible for the preparation of a body for burial) is so well-established that some people do not recognize it as a euphemism, since giving way to the more scientific-sounding euphemism mortician and yet further euphemisms.

Someone who has died is said to have passed on, checked out, cashed in their chips, bit the big one, kicked the bucket, keeled over, bit the dust, popped their clogs, pegged it, carked it, was snuffed out, turned their toes up, hopped the twig, bought the farm, got zapped, wrote their epitaph, fell off their perch, croaked, gave up the ghost (originally a more respectful term, cf. the death of Jesus as translated in the King James Version of the Bible Mark 15:37), gone south, gone west, gone to California, shuffled off this mortal coil (from William Shakespeare's Hamlet), run down the curtain and joined the Choir Invisible, or assumed room temperature (actually a dysphemism in use among mortuary technicians). When buried, they may be said to be pushing up daisies, sleeping the big sleep, taking a dirt nap, gone into the fertilizing business, checking out the grass from underneath or six feet under. There are hundreds of such expressions in use. (Old Burma-Shave jingle: "If daisies are your favorite flower, keep pushin’ up those miles per hour!") In Edwin Muir's 'The Horses' a euphemism is used to show the elimination of the human race 'The seven days war that put the world to sleep.'

The "Dead Parrot" sketch from Monty Python's Flying Circus contains an extensive list of euphemisms for death, including many cited above, referring to the deceased parrot that the character played by John Cleese had purchased. The popularity of the sketch has itself increased the popularity of some of these euphemisms — indeed, it has introduced another euphemism for death, "pining for the fjords" (since it was a Norwegian parrot) — although in the sketch that phrase was used by the shop owner to assert that the parrot was not dead, but was merely quiet and contemplative.

Euthanasia also attracts euphemisms. One may put one out of one's misery, put one to sleep, or have one put down, the latter two phrases being used primarily with dogs, cats, and horses who are being or have been euthanized by a veterinarian. (These terms are not usually applied to humans, because both medical ethics and law deprecate euthanasia.) In fact, Dr. Bernard Nathanson has pointed out that the word "euthanasia" itself is a euphemism, being Greek for "good death."

Some euphemisms for killing are neither respectful nor playful, but instead clinical and detached, including terminate, wet work, to take care of one, to do them in, to off, or to take them out. To cut loose or open up on someone or something means "to shoot at with every available weapon". Gangland euphemisms for murder include ventilate, whack, rub out, liquidate, cut down, hit, take him for a ride, string him up, cut down to size, or "put him in cement boots," "sleep with the fishes" or "put him in a concrete overcoat," the latter three implying disposal in deep water, if then alive by drowning; the arrangement for a killing may be a simple "contract" with the victim referred to as the "client," which suggests a normal transaction of business.

One of the most infamous euphemisms in history was the German term Endlösung, frequently translated in English as "the Final Solution", a systematic plan for genocide of the Jews. This was, in turn, an extension of the concept of eugenics, a euphemism for the neutering and killing various people who are deformed, social misfits, or members of racial groups deemed undesirable to the Nazi Party.

Some dysphemisms, especially for death are euphemisms or dysphemisms for other unpleasant events and thus are unpleasant in their literal meaning, used to generalize a bad event. "Having your ass handed to you," "left for the rats," "toasted," "roasted," "burned," "pounded", "bent over the barrel," "screwed over," or other terms commonly describe death or the state of imminent death, but also are common in describing defeat of any kind such as a humiliating loss in a sport or video game, being unfairly treated or cast aside in business affairs, being badly beaten in a fight, and similar.

Such an execution device as the electric chair has been known as "Old Sparky" or "Yellow Mama," and the device that delivers lethal chemicals to the condemned in a lethal injection is reduced to "the needle."

To terminate with prejudice generally means to end one's employment without possibility of rehire (as opposed to lay off, where the person can expect rehire if business picks up), but the related phrase "terminate with extreme prejudice" now usually means to kill. The adjective extreme may occasionally be omitted. In a famous line from the movie Apocalypse Now, Captain Willard is told to terminate Colonel Kurtz's commission "with extreme prejudice". An acronym, TWEP has been coined from this phrase, which can be used as a verb: "He was TWEPed/TWEPped."

In a passage near the beginning of The Twelve Chairs, Bezenchuk, an undertaker, astonishes Vorobyaninov with his classification of people by the euphemisms used to speak of their deaths.

The game Dungeon Siege contains many euphemisms for death. Likewise the video game Secret of Mana uses the phrase sees the reaper to mean death.

A scene in the film Patch Adams features Patch (Robin Williams) dressed in an angel costume, reading out various synonyms and euphemisms for the phrase "to die" to a man dying of cancer. This evolves into a contest between the two men to see who can come up with more, and better, euphemisms, ending when Patch comes up with "and if we bury you ass up, we'll have a place to park my bike."

Warfare[link]

The last time the United States Congress passed a bill with the title "Declaration of War" was in 1942, when the U.S. declared war on Romania.^{[citation needed]} Since then, various euphemisms have been employed:

The renaming of war department as defence department in the post-World War II era in various countries is itself a euphemism, as pointed out by George Orwell (who portrays a Ministry of Peace or minipax in a state at perpetual war in 1984).

In job titles[link]

This unreferenced section requires citations to ensure verifiability.

Euphemisms are common in job titles; some jobs have complicated titles that make them sound more impressive than the common names would imply, such as CPA in place of car parking attendant. Many of these euphemisms may include words such as engineer, although in fact the people who do the job are not accredited in engineering, manager for an employee without subordinates, or even a combination thereof. Extreme cases, such as sanitation engineer for janitor, or 'transparent-wall maintenance officer' for window cleaner, are cited humorously more often than they are used seriously. Less extreme cases, such as custodian for janitor or administrative assistant for secretary, are considered more terms of respect than euphemisms. Where the work itself is seen as distasteful, a euphemism may be used, for example "rodent officer" for a rat-catcher, or "cemetery operative" for a gravedigger. From the inter-force rivalry of the US military comes "High-Velocity Projectile Interceptor" as a description of the mission of an infantry soldier, usually spoken by someone of a non-infantry branch like the Air Force.

Doublespeak[link]

Doublespeak, often incorrectly assumed to originate from George Orwell's novel 1984 (erroneously combining Orwell's "newspeak" and "doublethink"), is language deliberately constructed to disguise or distort its actual meaning, often resulting in a communication bypass. What distinguishes doublespeak from other euphemisms is its deliberate usage. Doublespeak may be in the form of bald euphemisms such as "downsizing" or "rightsizing" for "firing of many employees"; or deliberately ambiguous phrases such as "wet work" for "assassination" and "take out" for "destroy".

Common examples[link]

Other common euphemisms include:

Euphemisms	Meaning
light in the loafers, confirmed bachelor, rides the bus	male homosexuality
abattoir	slaughterhouse
acting like rabbits, making love to, getting it on, screwing, doing it, making the beast with two backs, sleeping with	having sex with
adult entertainment, adult material, gentlemens's special interest literature	pornography
bathroom tissue, t.p., bath tissue	toilet paper (usually used by toilet paper manufacturers)
bias crime	hate crime (used by the New York Times to describe the Rutgers University/Tyler Clementi case.)
big, curvy, fluffy, zaftig, plus-sized, thick-boned, full-figured, heavy-set, Rubenesque	overweight, fat, obese
chemical dependency	drug addiction (though these technically describe distinct conditions)
co-morbidity	simultaneous existence of related mental and physical health issues (when morbidity is used as a medical term for illness), although in the regular medical use of this term it simply means the presence of one or more mental or physical diseases apart from the primary one and as such is not a euphemism.[24]
correctional facility	prison
custodian, caretaker	janitor (Also originally a euphemism — in Latin, it means doorman. In the British Secret Service, it may still carry the ancient meaning. It does in the novels of John le Carré.)
economically depressed neighborhood, culturally-deprived environment, inner city	ghetto, slum
enhanced interrogation	torture[25]
escort, service provider	callgirl, sex worker - often used in a context where 'johns' become "clients" and 'tricks' become "sessions" or "appointments" like those conducted by professionals in various other fields.
euthanasia	killing of healthy animals in animal shelters for a variety of reasons ranging from temperament to shelter overcrowding
feminine protection	tampon
gaming	gambling
gender-based violence	rape or sexual assault
gentlemen's club	go-go bar, strip club
hardware key, hardware token, security device	dongle
holiday tree, winter tree, tree	Christmas tree
in the family way	pregnant
it's snowin' down south	your slip is showing
lost their lives	were killed
mature, senior citizen, golden ager, been around the block	old, elderly
been around the block	having had much sexual experience
"I misspoke," bend the truth, white lie, fudge, colour the truth, be economical with the truth, dissemble, political spin, unreliable	lied, lie
motivation	bribe or coercion
peer homework help, comparing answers, collaborating, harvesting answers	cheating
persuasion or interrogation	torture[26]
a little persuasion	enormous physical force, as with a blow from a sledgehammer
pre-owned, pre-loved	used or second hand goods, such as automobiles
products of pregnancy	fetus (in the context of abortion)
mentally challenged, intellectually challenged, a few sandwiches short of a picnic	stupid, dim, dull, slow; of subnormal intelligence
reputational management	the use by lawyers of a strategic lawsuit against public participation or threats of vexatious litigation to silence public complaints or criticism
ride the short bus	learning disability requiring remedial or special education - see Short bus (disambiguation)
restroom, washroom, powder room (for women)	toilet room
replacement workers	scabs or strikebreakers brought into a labour dispute
sanitary landfill	garbage dump (and a temporary garbage dump is a transfer station), also often called a Civic Amenity in the UK
sanitary napkin	maxipad
sanatorium	lunatic asylum
sanitation worker (or, sarcastically, sanitation officer or sanitation engineer)	bin man, garbage man
"she's in the club"	she's pregnant, chiefly British
State Electrician	executioner in cases where an electric chair is used
take legal action	sue
the big C	cancer (in addition, some people whisper the word when they say it in public, and doctors euphemistically use technical terminology when discussing cancer in front of patients, e.g., "c.a." or "neoplasia"/"neoplastic process", "carcinoma" for "tumor"); euphemisms for cancer are used even more so in the Netherlands, because the Dutch word for cancer can be used as a curse word
the north of Ireland	Northern Ireland (seen by many Irish people as a term imposed by the British and therefore a profanity; however, saying the north of Ireland may be primarily a way of identifying oneself with the Irish Nationalist cause, rather than a euphemism)
the Scottish Play	Shakespeare's Macbeth
to cut excesses (in a budget), rightsize, downsize, let go	Lay off
being paid (off)', dismissal'	fired or sacked
water pollution control plant	sewage treatment facility
wellness	benefits and treatments that tend to only be used in times of sickness
women wearing comfortable shoes	female homosexuality (used on-air by Robin Williams as announcer in Good Morning Vietnam)
comfort station	Brothel, or alternatively, Toilet
a little thin on top	bald
we are looking forward to settlement of the account	you owe us money
exotic dancer	stripper
visit from the stork	give birth

These lists might suggest that most euphemisms are well-known expressions. Often euphemisms can be somewhat situational; what might be used as a euphemism in a conversation between two friends might make no sense to a third person. In this case, the euphemism is being used as a type of innuendo. At other times, the euphemism is common in some circles (such as the medical field) but not others, becoming a type of jargon or, in underworld situations especially, argot. One such example is the line "put him in bed with the captain's daughter" from the popular sea shanty Drunken Sailor, which means to give a whipping with the cat o' nine tails—euphemistically referred to by sailors as the "captain's daughter".

Euphemisms can also be used by governments to rename statutes to use a less offensive expression. For example, in Ontario, Canada, the "Disabled Person Parking Permit" was renamed to the "Accessible Parking Permit" in 2007.^[27]

The word euphemism itself can be used as a euphemism. In the animated short It's Grinch Night (See Dr. Seuss), a child asks to go to the euphemism, where euphemism is being used as a euphemism for outhouse. This euphemistic use of "euphemism" also occurred in the play Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? where a character requests, "Martha, will you show her where we keep the, uh, euphemism?" It is analogous to the 19th-century use of unmentionables for underpants.

Also, lots of euphemisms are used in the improvised television show, Whose Line Is It Anyway?. They are used often in the game 'If You Know What I Mean', where players are given a scene and have to use as many obscure clichés and euphemisms as possible.

See also[link]

For a list of words relating to euphemisms, see the Euphemisms category of words in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

Look up euphemism in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

Wikisource has the text of the 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica article Euphemism.

• Allusion
• Code word (figure of speech)
• Dead Parrot sketch
• Distancing language
• Double entendre
• Dysphemism
• Framing (social sciences)
• Minimisation
• Polite fiction
• Political correctness
• Pun
• Sexual slang
• Slander and libel
• Spin (public relations)
• Thomas Bowdler
• Word play

References[link]

Further reading[link]

• Keith Allan., Burridge, Kate. Euphemism & Dysphemism: Language Used As Shield and Weapon, Oxford University Press, 1991. ISBN 0-7351-0288-0.
• Benveniste, Émile, "Euphémismes anciens and modernes", in: Problèmes de linguistique générale, vol. 1, pp. 308–314. [originally published in: Die Sprache, I (1949), pp. 116–122].
• Enright, D.J. (1986). Fair of Speech. Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-283060-0. 
• R.W.Holder: How Not to Say What You Mean: A Dictionary of Euphemisms, Oxford University Press, 501 pages, 2003. ISBN 0-19-860762-8.
• Keyes, Ralph (2010). Euphemania: Our Love Affair with Euphemisms. Little, Brown and Company. ISBN 978-0-316-05656-4. 
• Maledicta: The International Journal of Verbal Aggression (ISSN US).
• McGlone, M.S., Beck, G., & Pfiester, R.A. (2006). Contamination and camouflage in euphemisms. Communication Monographs, 73, 261-282.
• Rawson, Hugh (1995). A Dictionary of Euphemism & Other Doublespeak (second ed.). ISBN 0-517-70201-0. 
• Smyth, Herbert Weir (1920). Greek Grammar. Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press. p. 678. ISBN 0-674-36250-0. 

v t e Propaganda techniques Ad hominem · Bandwagon effect · Big Lie · Blood libel · Buzzword · Card stacking · Censorship · Code word · Dog-whistle politics · Doublespeak · Euphemism · Framing · Glittering generality · Historical revisionism · Ideograph · Indoctrination · Lawfare · Lesser of two evils principle · Limited hangout · Loaded language · Loosely associated statements · Newspeak · Obscurantism · Plain folks · Public relations · Slogan · Spin · Weasel word

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George Carlin
Carlin in Trenton, New Jersey on April 4, 2008
Birth name	George Denis Patrick Carlin
Born	(1937-05-12)May 12, 1937 New York City, New York, U.S.
Died	June 22, 2008(2008-06-22) (aged 71) Santa Monica, California, U.S.
Medium	Stand-up, television, film, books, radio
Nationality	American
Years active	1956–2008
Genres	Character comedy, observational comedy, wit/word play, satire/political satire, black comedy, surreal humor, sarcasm, blue comedy
Subject(s)	American culture, American English, everyday life, atheism, recreational drug use, death, philosophy, human behavior, American politics, parenting, children, religion, profanity, psychology, anarchism, race relations, old age, pop culture, self-deprecation, childhood, family
Influences	Danny Kaye,[1][2] Jonathan Winters,[2] Lenny Bruce,[3][4] Richard Pryor,[5] Jerry Lewis,[2][5] Marx Brothers,[2][5] Mort Sahl,[4] Spike Jones,[5] Ernie Kovacs,[5] Ritz Brothers[2] Monty Python[5]
Influenced	Chris Rock,[6] Jerry Seinfeld,[7] Bill Hicks, Jim Norton, Sam Kinison, Louis C.K.,[8] Lewis Black,[9] Jon Stewart,[10] Stephen Colbert,[11] Bill Maher,[12] Denis Leary, Patrice O'Neal,[13] Adam Carolla,[14] Colin Quinn,[15] Steven Wright,[16], Mitch Hedberg,[17] Russell Peters,[18] Jay Leno,[19] Ben Stiller,[19] Kevin Smith[20]
Spouse	Brenda Hosbrook (August 5, 1961 – May 11, 1997) (her death) 1 child Sally Wade (June 24, 1998 – June 22, 2008) (his death)[21]
Notable works and roles	Class Clown "Seven Words You Can Never Say on Television" Rufus in Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure and Bill & Ted's Bogus Journey Narrator for Thomas the Tank Engine & Friends and "Mr. Conductor" on Shining Time Station The George Carlin Show
Signature
Website	www.georgecarlin.com
Grammy Awards Best Comedy Recording 1972 FM & AM 2009 It's Bad For Ya (posthumous) Best Spoken Comedy Album 1993 Jammin' in New York 2001 Brain Droppings 2002 Napalm & Silly Putty American Comedy Awards Funniest Male Performer in a TV Special 1997 George Carlin: Back in Town 1998 George Carlin: 40 Years of Comedy Lifetime Achievement Award in Comedy 2001

George Denis Patrick Carlin (May 12, 1937 – June 22, 2008) was an American stand-up comedian, social critic, satirist, actor and writer/author, who won five Grammy Awards for his comedy albums.^[22]

Carlin was noted for his black humor as well as his thoughts on politics, the English language, psychology, religion, and various taboo subjects. Carlin and his "Seven Dirty Words" comedy routine were central to the 1978 U.S. Supreme Court case F.C.C. v. Pacifica Foundation, in which a narrow 5–4 decision by the justices affirmed the government's power to regulate indecent material on the public airwaves.

The first of his fourteen stand-up comedy specials for HBO was filmed in 1977. In 1988, the 1990s and 2000s, Carlin's routines focused on socio-cultural criticism of modern American society. He often commented on contemporary political issues in the United States and satirized the excesses of American culture. His final HBO special, It's Bad for Ya, was filmed less than four months before his death.

In 2004, Carlin placed second on the Comedy Central list of the 100 greatest stand-up comedians of all time, ahead of Lenny Bruce and behind Richard Pryor.^[23] He was a frequent performer and guest host on The Tonight Show during the three-decade Johnny Carson era, and hosted the first episode of Saturday Night Live. In 2008, he was awarded the Mark Twain Prize for American Humor.

Early life[link]

Carlin was born in Manhattan,^[24][25] the second son of Mary (Beary), a secretary, and Patrick Carlin, a national advertising manager for the New York Sun.^[26] Carlin was of Irish descent and was raised a Roman Catholic.^[27][28][29]

Carlin grew up on West 121st Street, in a neighborhood of Manhattan which he later said, in a stand-up routine, he and his friends called "White Harlem", because that sounded a lot tougher than its real name of Morningside Heights. He was raised by his mother, who left his father when Carlin was two months old.^[30] He attended Corpus Christi School, a Roman Catholic parish school of the Corpus Christi Church, in Morningside Heights.^[31][32] After three semesters, at the age of 15, Carlin involuntarily left Cardinal Hayes High School in the Bronx and briefly attended Bishop Dubois High School in Harlem.^[33] Carlin had a difficult relationship with his mother and often ran away from home.^[2] He later joined the United States Air Force and was trained as a radar technician. He was stationed at Barksdale Air Force Base in Bossier City, Louisiana.

During this time he began working as a disc jockey at radio station KJOE, in the nearby city of Shreveport. He did not complete his Air Force enlistment. Labeled an "unproductive airman" by his superiors, Carlin was discharged on July 29, 1957. During his time in the Air Force he was court martialed three times, and also received many disciplinary punishments.^[34]

Career[link]

In 1959, Carlin and Jack Burns began as a comedy team when both were working for radio station KXOL in Fort Worth, Texas.^[35] After successful performances at Fort Worth's beat coffeehouse, The Cellar, Burns and Carlin headed for California in February 1960 and stayed together for two years as a team before moving on to individual pursuits.

1960s[link]

Within weeks of arriving in California in 1960, Burns and Carlin put together an audition tape and created The Wright Brothers, a morning show on KDAY in Hollywood. The comedy team worked there for three months, honing their material in beatnik coffeehouses at night.^[36] Years later when he was honored with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, Carlin requested that it be placed in front of the KDAY studios near the corner of Sunset Boulevard and Vine Street.^[37] Burns and Carlin recorded their only album, Burns and Carlin at the Playboy Club Tonight, in May 1960 at Cosmo Alley in Hollywood.^[36]

In the 1960s, Carlin began appearing on television variety shows, notably The Ed Sullivan Show and The Tonight Show. His most famous routines were:

• The Indian Sergeant ("You wit' the beads... get outta line")
• Stupid disc jockeys ("Wonderful WINO...")—"The Beatles' latest record, when played backwards at slow speed, says 'Dummy! You're playing it backwards at slow speed!'"
• Al Sleet, the "hippie-dippie weatherman"—"Tonight's forecast: Dark. Continued dark throughout most of the evening, with some widely scattered light towards morning."
• Jon Carson—the "world never known, and never to be known"

Variations on the first three of these routines appear on Carlin's 1967 debut album, Take Offs and Put Ons, recorded live in 1966 at The Roostertail in Detroit, Michigan.^[38]

Carlin with singer Buddy Greco in Away We Go. The summer replacement show also starred drummer Buddy Rich.

During this period, Carlin became more popular as a frequent performer and guest host on The Tonight Show, initially with Jack Paar as host, then with Johnny Carson. Carlin became one of Carson's most frequent substitutes during the host's three-decade reign. Carlin was also cast in Away We Go, a 1967 comedy show that aired on CBS.^[39] His material during his early career and his appearance, which consisted of suits and short-cropped hair, had been seen as "conventional," particularly when contrasted with his later anti-establishment material.^[40]

Carlin was present at Lenny Bruce's arrest for obscenity. As the police began attempting to detain members of the audience for questioning, they asked Carlin for his identification. Telling the police he did not believe in government-issued IDs, he was arrested and taken to jail with Bruce in the same vehicle.^[41]

1970s[link]

Eventually, Carlin changed both his routines and his appearance. He lost some TV bookings by dressing strangely for a comedian of the time, wearing faded jeans and sporting long hair, a beard, and earrings at a time when clean-cut, well-dressed comedians were the norm. Using his own persona as a springboard for his new comedy, he was presented by Ed Sullivan in a performance of "The Hair Piece" and quickly regained his popularity as the public caught on to his sense of style. In this period he also perfected what is perhaps his best-known routine, "Seven Words You Can Never Say on Television", recorded on Class Clown. Carlin was arrested on July 21, 1972, at Milwaukee's Summerfest and charged with violating obscenity laws after performing this routine.^[42] The case, which prompted Carlin to refer to the words for a time as "the Milwaukee Seven," was dismissed in December of that year; the judge declared that the language was indecent but Carlin had the freedom to say it as long as he caused no disturbance. In 1973, a man complained to the Federal Communications Commission after listening with his son to a similar routine, "Filthy Words", from Occupation: Foole, broadcast one afternoon over WBAI, a Pacifica Foundation FM radio station in New York City. Pacifica received a citation from the FCC that sought to fine the company for violating FCC regulations that prohibited broadcasting "obscene" material. The U.S. Supreme Court upheld the FCC action by a vote of 5 to 4, ruling that the routine was "indecent but not obscene" and that the FCC had authority to prohibit such broadcasts during hours when children were likely to be among the audience. (F.C.C. v. Pacifica Foundation, 438 U.S. 726 (1978). The court documents contain a complete transcript of the routine.)^[43]

The controversy only increased Carlin's fame. Carlin eventually expanded the dirty-words theme with a seemingly interminable end to a performance (ending with his voice fading out in one HBO version and accompanying the credits in the Carlin at Carnegie special for the 1982-83 season) and a set of 49 web pages^[44] organized by subject and embracing his "Incomplete List Of Impolite Words."

It was on-stage during a rendition of his "Dirty Words" routine that Carlin learned that his previous comedy album FM & AM had won the Grammy. Midway through the performance on the album Occupation: Foole, he can be heard thanking someone for handing him a piece of paper. He then exclaims "Shit!" and proudly announces his win to the audience.

Carlin hosted the premiere broadcast of NBC's Saturday Night Live, on October 11, 1975, the only episode as of at least 2007 in which the host had no involvement (at his request) in sketches.^[45] The following season, 1976–77, Carlin also appeared regularly on CBS Television's Tony Orlando & Dawn variety series.

Carlin unexpectedly stopped performing regularly in 1976, when his career appeared to be at its height. For the next five years, he rarely performed stand-up, although it was at this time that he began doing specials for HBO as part of its On Location series. He later revealed that he had suffered the first of three heart attacks during this layoff period.^[5] His first two HBO specials aired in 1977 and 1978.

1980s and 1990s[link]

In 1981, Carlin returned to the stage, releasing A Place For My Stuff and returning to HBO and New York City with the Carlin at Carnegie TV special, videotaped at Carnegie Hall and airing during the 1982-83 season. Carlin continued doing HBO specials every year or every other year over the following decade and a half. All of Carlin's albums from this time forward are from the HBO specials.

In concert at Harrisburg, Pennsylvania

He hosted SNL for the second time on November 10, 1984, this time appearing in several sketches. Carlin's acting career was primed with a major supporting role in the 1987 comedy hit Outrageous Fortune, starring Bette Midler and Shelley Long; it was his first notable screen role after a handful of previous guest roles on television series. Playing drifter Frank Madras, the role poked fun at the lingering effect of the 1960s counterculture. In 1989, he gained popularity with a new generation of teens when he was cast as Rufus, the time-traveling mentor of the titular characters in Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure, and reprised his role in the film sequel Bill and Ted's Bogus Journey as well as the first season of the cartoon series. From 1991 to 1995, he narrated the American version of the children's show Thomas the Tank Engine & Friends, and played "Mr. Conductor" on Shining Time Station from 1991 to 1993. Also in 1991, Carlin had a major supporting role in the movie The Prince of Tides, which starred Nick Nolte and Barbra Streisand.

Carlin began a weekly Fox sitcom, The George Carlin Show, in 1993, playing New York City taxicab driver George O'Grady. The show, created and written by The Simpsons co-creator Sam Simon, ran 27 episodes through December 1995.^[46]

In his final book, the posthumously published Last Words, Carlin said about The George Carlin Show, "I was incredibly happy when the show was canceled. I was frustrated that it had taken me away from my true work."^[47]

In 1997, his first hardcover book, Brain Droppings, was published. The book sold nearly 900,000 copies and spent 40 weeks on the New York Times best-seller list. ^[48] Carlin was honored at the 1997 Aspen Comedy Festival with a retrospective, George Carlin: 40 Years of Comedy, hosted by Jon Stewart.

In 1999, Carlin played a supporting role as a satirical Roman Catholic cardinal in filmmaker Kevin Smith's movie Dogma. He worked with Smith again with a cameo appearance in Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back and later played an atypically serious role in Jersey Girl as the blue-collar father of Ben Affleck's character.

2000s[link]

In 2001, Carlin was given a Lifetime Achievement Award at the 15th Annual American Comedy Awards. In December 2003, California U.S. Representative Doug Ose (Republican), introduced a bill (H.R. 3687) to outlaw the broadcast of Carlin's "seven dirty words,"^[49] including "compound use (including hyphenated compounds) of such words and phrases with each other or with other words or phrases, and other grammatical forms of such words and phrases (including verb, adjective, gerund, participle, and infinitive forms)." (The bill omits "tits," but includes "asshole," which was not part of Carlin's original routine.) This bill was never voted on. The last action on this bill was its referral to the House Judiciary Committee on the Constitution on January 15, 2004.^[49]

For years, Carlin had performed regularly as a headliner in Las Vegas, but in 2005 he was fired from his headlining position at the MGM Grand Hotel in Las Vegas, Nevada, after an altercation with his audience. After a poorly received set filled with dark references to suicide bombings and beheadings, Carlin stated that he could not wait to get out of "this fucking hotel" and Las Vegas, claiming he wanted to go back east, "where the real people are." He continued to insult his audience, stating:

People who go to Las Vegas, you've got to question their fucking intellect to start with. Traveling hundreds and thousands of miles to essentially give your money to a large corporation is kind of fucking moronic. That's what I'm always getting here is these kind of fucking people with very limited intellects.

An audience member shouted back that Carlin should "stop degrading us," at which point Carlin responded, "Thank you very much, whatever that was. I hope it was positive; if not, well, blow me." He was immediately fired by MGM Grand and soon after announced he would enter rehab for alcohol and prescription painkiller addiction.^[50][51]

He began a tour through the first half of 2006 following the airing of his thirteenth HBO Special on November 5, 2005, entitled Life is Worth Losing,^[52] which was shown live from the Beacon Theatre in New York City and in which he stated early on: "I've got 341 days of sobriety," referring to the rehab he entered after being fired from MGM. Topics covered included suicide, natural disasters (and the desire to see them escalate in severity), cannibalism, genocide, human sacrifice, threats to civil liberties in America, and how an argument can be made that humans are inferior to other animals.

On February 1, 2006, during his Life Is Worth Losing set at the Tachi Palace Casino in Lemoore, California, Carlin mentioned to the crowd that he had been discharged from the hospital only six weeks previously for "heart failure" and "pneumonia", citing the appearance as his "first show back."

Carlin provided the voice of Fillmore, a character in the Disney/Pixar animated feature Cars, which opened in theaters on June 9, 2006. The character Fillmore, who is presented as an anti-establishment hippie, is a VW Microbus with a psychedelic paint job whose front license plate reads "51237," Carlin's birthday and also the Zip Code for George, Iowa. In 2007, Carlin provided the voice of the wizard in Happily N'Ever After, along with Sarah Michelle Gellar, Freddie Prinze Jr., Andy Dick, and Wallace Shawn, his last film.

Carlin's last HBO stand-up special, It's Bad for Ya, aired live on March 1, 2008, from the Wells Fargo Center for the Arts in Santa Rosa, California.^[53] The themes that appeared in this HBO special included "American Bullshit," "Rights," "Death," "Old Age," and "Child Rearing." In his routine, he brought to light many of the problems facing America, and he told his audience to cut through the "bullshit" of the world and "enjoy the carnival." Carlin had been working on the new material for this HBO special for several months prior in concerts all over the country.

Personal life[link]

In 1961, Carlin married Brenda Hosbrook (August 5, 1936 - May 11, 1997), whom he had met while touring the previous year. The couple's only child, a daughter named Kelly, was born on June 15, 1963.^[54] In 1971, George and Brenda renewed their wedding vows in Las Vegas. Brenda died of liver cancer a day before Carlin's 60th birthday, in 1997.

Carlin later married Sally Wade on June 24, 1998, and the marriage lasted until his death, two days before their tenth anniversary.^[55]

Carlin often criticized elections as an illusion of choice.^[56] He said the last time he voted was 1972, for George McGovern who ran for President against Richard Nixon.^[57]

Religion[link]

Although raised in the Roman Catholic faith, which he describes anecdotally on the albums FM & AM and Class Clown, religion, God, and particularly religious adherents were frequent subjects of criticism in Carlin's routines. He described his opinion of the flaws of organized religion in interviews and performances, notably with his "Religion" and "There Is No God" routines as heard in You Are All Diseased. His views on religion are also mentioned in his last HBO stand up show It's Bad for Ya where he mocked the traditional swearing on the Bible as "bullshit,"^[58] "make believe," and "kids' stuff." In It's Bad for Ya, Carlin noted differences in the types of hats religions ban or require as part of their practices. He mentions that he would never want to be a part of a group that requires or bans the wearing of hats. Carlin also joked in his second book, Brain Droppings, that he worshipped the Sun, one reason being that he could see it.

Themes[link]

Carlin's material falls under one of three self-described categories: "the little world" (observational humor), "the big world" (social commentary), and the peculiarities of the English language (euphemisms, doublespeak, business jargon), all sharing the overall theme of (in his words) "humanity's bullshit," which might include murder, genocide, war, rape, corruption, religion and other aspects of human civilization. He was known for mixing observational humour with larger social commentary. His delivery frequently treated these subjects in a misanthropic and nihilistic fashion, such as in his statement during the Life is Worth Losing show:

I look at it this way... For centuries now, man has done everything he can to destroy, defile, and interfere with nature: clear-cutting forests, strip-mining mountains, poisoning the atmosphere, over-fishing the oceans, polluting the rivers and lakes, destroying wetlands and aquifers... so when nature strikes back, and smacks him on the head and kicks him in the nuts, I enjoy that. I have absolutely no sympathy for human beings whatsoever. None. And no matter what kind of problem humans are facing, whether it's natural or man-made, I always hope it gets worse.

Language was a frequent focus of Carlin's work. Euphemisms that, in his view, seek to distort and lie and the use of language he felt was pompous, presumptuous, or silly were often the target of Carlin's routines. When asked on Inside the Actors Studio what turned him on, he responded, "Reading about language." When asked what made him most proud about his career, he said the number of his books that have been sold, close to a million copies.

Carlin also gave special attention to prominent topics in American and Western Culture, such as obsession with fame and celebrity, consumerism, conservative Christianity, political alienation, corporate control, hypocrisy, child raising, fast food diet, news stations, self-help publications, blind patriotism, sexual taboos, certain uses of technology and surveillance, and the pro-life position,^[59] among many others.

George Carlin in Trenton, New Jersey April 4, 2008

Carlin openly communicated in his shows and in his interviews that his purpose for existence was entertainment, that he was "here for the show." He professed a hearty schadenfreude in watching the rich spectrum of humanity slowly self-destruct, in his estimation, of its own design, saying, "When you're born, you get a ticket to the freak show. When you're born in America, you get a front-row seat." He acknowledged that this is a very selfish thing, especially since he included large human catastrophes as entertainment. In his You Are All Diseased concert, he elaborated somewhat on this, telling the audience, "I have always been willing to put myself at great personal risk for the sake of entertainment. And I've always been willing to put you at great personal risk, for the same reason!"

In the same interview, he recounted his experience of a California earthquake in the early 1970s, as "[a]n amusement park ride. Really, I mean it's such a wonderful thing to realize that you have absolutely no control, and to see the dresser move across the bedroom floor unassisted is just exciting."

A routine in Carlin's 1999 HBO special You Are All Diseased focusing on airport security leads up to the statement: "Take a fucking chance! Put a little fun in your life! Most Americans are soft and frightened and unimaginative and they don't realize there's such a thing as dangerous fun, and they certainly don't recognize a good show when they see one."

Along with wordplay and sex jokes, Carlin had always included politics as part of his material, but by the mid 1980s he had become a strident social critic in both his HBO specials and the book compilations of his material, bashing both conservatives and liberals alike. His HBO viewers got an especially sharp taste of this in his take on the Ronald Reagan administration during the 1988 special What Am I Doing In New Jersey?, broadcast live from the Park Theatre in Union City, New Jersey.

Death and legacy[link]

Carlin had a history of cardiac problems spanning several decades, including three heart attacks (in 1978 at age 41, 1982 and 1991), an arrhythmia requiring an ablation procedure in 2003, and a significant episode of heart failure in late 2005. He twice underwent angioplasty to reopen narrowed arteries.^[60] In early 2005 he entered a drug rehabilitation facility for treatment of addictions to alcohol and Vicodin.^[61]

On June 22, 2008, Carlin was admitted to Saint John's Health Center in Santa Monica after experiencing chest pain, and he died later that day of heart failure. He was 71 years old.^[62] His death occurred one week after his last performance at The Orleans Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas. There were further shows on his itinerary.^[21][63][64] In accordance with his wishes, he was cremated, his ashes scattered, and no public or religious services of any kind were held.^[65][66]

In tribute, HBO broadcast eleven of his fourteen HBO specials from June 25–28, including a twelve-hour marathon block on their HBO Comedy channel. NBC scheduled a rerun of the premiere episode of Saturday Night Live, which Carlin hosted.^[67][68][69] Both Sirius Satellite Radio's "Raw Dog Comedy" and XM Satellite Radio's "XM Comedy" channels ran a memorial marathon of George Carlin recordings the day following his death. Larry King devoted his entire June 23 show to a tribute to Carlin, featuring interviews with Jerry Seinfeld, Bill Maher, Roseanne Barr and Lewis Black, as well as Carlin's daughter Kelly and his brother, Patrick.

On June 24, The New York Times published an op-ed piece on Carlin by Seinfeld.^[70] Cartoonist Garry Trudeau paid tribute in his Doonesbury comic strip on July 27.^[71]

Four days before his death, the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts had named Carlin its 2008 Mark Twain Prize for American Humor honoree.^[72] The prize was awarded in Washington, D.C. on November 10, making Carlin the first posthumous recipient.^[73] Comedians honoring him at the ceremony included Jon Stewart, Bill Maher, Lily Tomlin (a past Twain Humor Prize winner), Lewis Black, Denis Leary, Joan Rivers, and Margaret Cho.

Louis C.K. dedicated his stand-up special Chewed Up to Carlin, and Lewis Black dedicated his entire second season of Root of All Evil to him.

For a number of years, Carlin had been compiling and writing his autobiography, to be released in conjunction with a one-man Broadway show tentatively titled New York City Boy. After his death Tony Hendra, his collaborator on both projects, edited the autobiography for release as Last Words (ISBN 1-4391-7295-1). The book, chronicling most of Carlin's life and future plans (including the one-man show) was published in 2009. The audio edition is narrated by Carlin's brother, Patrick.^[74]

The text of the one-man show is scheduled for publication under the title New York Boy.^[75]

The George Carlin Letters: The Permanent Courtship of Sally Wade,^[76] by Carlin's widow, a collection of previously-unpublished writings and artwork by Carlin interwoven with Wade’s chronicle of the last ten years of their life together, was published in March 2011. (The subtitle is the phrase on a handwritten note Wade found next to her computer upon returning home from the hospital after her husband's death.)^[77]

In 2008 Carlin's daughter Kelly Carlin-McCall announced plans to publish an "oral history", a collection of stories from Carlin's friends and family,^[78] but she later indicated that the project had been shelved in favor of completion of her own memoir.^[79]

Works[link]

Discography[link]