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By FRAZIER MOORE – 14 hours ago
NEW YORK (AP) — More than 30 years after George Carlin pronounced “Seven Words You Can Never Say On Television,” some of those words have lost their sting.
Some of those words still aren’t welcome on the public airwaves (or, for that matter, in print) and they are still being debated in the courts.
But you can hear those words voiced in everyday discourse more than ever.
Carlin, who died Sunday at age 71, observed in his routine: “We have thoughts, but thoughts are fluid. Then we assign a word to a thought and we’re stuck with that word for that thought — so be careful with words.”
Carlin’s seven words, he would caution ironically, “are the ones that’ll infect your soul, curve your spine, and keep the country from winning the war.”
Or course, times — and wars — have changed. At least one of Carlin’s words (a rude term for urine) wouldn’t raise an eyebrow on much of broadcast TV now.
Meanwhile, none of them is alien to premium cable. For many viewers, hearing those Words You Can’t Say On Television being said on television helps make pay cable worth paying for.
Those words were heard on television in 1977, on Carlin’s first HBO comedy special.
They fall into predictable categories: bodily waste; sexual acts (both socially acceptable and frowned upon); and female body parts.
“When he used those words he wasn’t just trying to shock,” said Richard Zoglin, who wrote about Carlin in his recent book, “Comedy at the Edge: How Standup in the 1970s Changed America.”
“He was trying to make a statement that’s familiar today, but wasn’t so familiar back then: ‘Why do we have this irrational fear of words?’”
Of this Magnificent Seven, only one, which refers to the female anatomy, retains the power to jolt nearly anyone within earshot. On an HBO sitcom a couple of years ago, the angry husband used this word to insult his wife. It nearly wrecked their marriage. More tellingly, the studio audience emitted an audible gasp.

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