They'd have to be outrageous to be seperated from a group that large. There are 400,000 words in the English language and there are 7 of them you can't say on television. There are some that would have you not use certain words. There are some people that are not into all the words. I like to think that the same words that hurt can heal, it is a matter of how you pick them. Then we assign a word to a thought and we're stuck with that word for that thought, so be careful with words.

They're my work, they're my play, they're my passion. I want to tell you something about words that I think is important. I'll bet you that.The Seven Words You Can Never Say On Television 'Post-traumatic stress disorder.' I'll bet you if we'd have still been calling it shell shock, some of those Vietnam veterans might have gotten the attention they needed at the time. Still eight syllables, but we've added a hyphen! And the pain is completely buried under jargon.

And thanks to the lies and deceit surrounding that war, I guess it's no surprise that the very same condition was called 'post-traumatic stress disorder.' Then, of course, came the war in Vietnam, which has only been over for about sixteen or seventeen years. Operational exhaustion, sounds like something that might happen to your car! Hey, we're up to eight syllables now! And the humanity has been completely squeezed out of the phrase, it's totally sterile now. And the very same combat condition was called 'operational exhaustion.' Madison Avenue was riding high by that time. 'Fatigue' is a nicer word than 'shock.' Shell shock. Takes a little longer to say, doesn't seem to hurt as much. And the very same combat condition was called 'battle fatigue.' Four syllables now. Then a whole generation went by, and the second World War came along. In the first World War, that condition was called 'shell shock.' Simple, honest, direct language. There's a condition in combat, most people know about it, it's when a fighting person's nervous system has been stressed to its absolute peak and maximum, can't take any more input. For some reason, it just keeps getting worse. So they invent the kind of a soft language to protect themselves from it. Because Americans have a lot of trouble dealing with reality. And American English is loaded with euphemisms. I don't like euphemisms, or euphemistic language.

What would you call a ladies' man, a 'person's person'? That would make a he-man an 'it-person.' Little kids would be afraid of the 'boogie-person.' They'd look up in the sky and see the 'person in the moon.' Guys would say 'come back here and fight like a person,' and we'd all sing 'For It's a Jolly Good Person,' that's the kind of thing you would hear on 'Late Night with David Letterperson'! You know what I mean?

They want me to call that thing in the street a 'personhole cover.' I think that's taking it a little bit too far! I think 'spokesman' ought to be 'spokesperson.' I think 'chairman' ought to be 'chairperson.' I think 'mankind' ought to be 'humankind.' But they take it too far, they take themselves too seriously, they exaggerate. So maybe some of this patriarchal shit ought to go away. And so the quality of our thoughts and ideas can only be as good as the quality of our language. When it comes to changing the language, I think they make some good points.

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