R.I.P. George Carlin

The comic who focused on social satire and a general disappointment with the species died last night of heart failure at 71. His routine "7 words you can't say on television" actually held literary legal weight. It actually became the official list of what broadcasters could not permit out over the air:

Yeah, there are 400,000 words in the English language, and there are seven of them that you can't say on television. What a ratio that is. 399,993 to seven. They must really be bad.

Seeing them in print doesn't do them justice, because Carlin was a spoken word artist. It was the rhythms, the emphasis, the tones that helped make the routines so funny. Here's a link to the text of the original routine. But if you'd like to hear him, try this Youtube link.