Seven Dirty Words

The seven dirty words are seven English-language profanities that the American comedian George Carlin first listed in his 1972 "Seven Words You Can Never Say on Television" monologue. I’ll spare you the which “seven” they were!

These words were considered highly inappropriate and unsuitable for broadcast on the public airwaves in the United States, whether radio or television. As such, they were avoided in scripted material and bleep censored in the rare cases in which they were used. Broadcast standards differ in different parts of the world, then and now, although most of the words on Carlin's original list remain taboo on American broadcast television. Nonetheless, a radio broadcast featuring these words led to the U.S. Supreme Court's 5–4 decision in 1978 in FCC v. Pacifica Foundation that the Federal Communication Commission's declaratory ruling upholding a 1973 complaint about Carlin's routine being broadcast at 2 p.m. violated neither the First nor the Fifth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, thus helping to define the extent to which the U.S. federal government could regulate speech on broadcast television and radio.

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Brian Suntken

It’s my sixtieth trip around the sun this year. I share some wisdom, some photography, some poetry and prayers for the journey ahead.

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