Some of you may recall George Carlin's monologue (shown at the end of this article) which was at issue in the Supreme Court case of FCC v. Pacifica Foundation.

[Update February 3, 2017: A beginner's guide to online censorship may be found at https://www.comparitech.com/blog/vpn-privacy/guide-to-online-censorship/]

In a recent review of the words which lead people from google.com to the Loper web site, we were surprised by the notable absence of George Carlin's 'Seven Dirty Words': shit, piss, fuck, cunt, cocksucker, motherfucker, and tits.

So we decided to make an internal search of the site itself. To our amusement and surprise, the Loper web site falls dreadfully short of the google quota where the seven dirty words are concerned.

SHIT

There are five matches on the Loper web site for the word shit: "shit flows down hill," "Oh shit. What do we do now?," "I smell cat-shit sneer," "shit ... the cops are grabbing people off the street," and "cow shit."

1. Shit Flows Down Hill

Back in 1996 - long before Al Gore lost the 2000 Presidential election - Texas belle Molly Ivans spoke this way about the regret of throwing away one's vote:

"Unfortunately, shit flows down hill, and in this society the people at the bottom are drowning in it. To them, having one guy who's just a hairbreadth better than another can be the difference between life and death. I've become very good at discerning that fine line's worth of difference between one totally worthless son of a bitch and another" (George Magazine, November 1996).

On July 10, 2000, in a column entitled "Our Man Ralph Nader and voting with your heart," Ivins added, "My voting philosophy is simple: In the primaries, go with your heart; in the finals, vote your brain."

2. Oh shit. What do we do now?

In August 2000, columnist David Corn had this to say about "Gore's Surrender" in The Nation:

"Less than a[n] hour after George Bush concluded his party's have-a-nice-election convention with a vapid but beyond-the-expectations acceptance speech, a source deep within the Gore camp called me. This person had already conferred with several Gore-ites, and each had expressed the same sentiment: 'Oh shit. What do we do now?'"

Adding that "Bush and the Republicans had succeeded in staging an r&b-scored, feel-good revue that transfused Bush's own affability into his campaign and party, that defined the election as a contest mostly of personality and character (with Bush oddly cast as the morally upright grown-up sadly disappointed with Clinton and Gore because of you-know-what), and that rendered the now smirk-free Bush into presidential material presiding over a united party that has reined in its more extreme elements."

George W. Bush, of course, went on to win the 2000 Presidential election.

3. I smell cat-shit sneer.

In March 2002, local Albemarle Republican Will Lyster took exception to local Charlottesville Democrat Harry Tenney's claim that history is on the side of liberals, accusing liberals of adopting a cat-shit sneer when talking of Lyster's own hero, Ollie North:

"I can't say whether or not I am a "new age" Republican - since this is a new term for me, but let's assume that I am in regards to Harry Tenney's email. I feel obliged say that everything he mentions must be attributed to members of both major political parties.

Just as Mr. Tenney mentions that when Republicans say 'liberal', I found in the past that most liberals tend to have the 'lip-curling, vitriol-flowing' whenever one mentions Ollie North (I just happen to term it as a 'I smell cat-shit sneer'). As far as epithets go, Republicans seem to have been given ones such as 'thugs', 'nazis', 'facists' and 'wackos'."

4. shit ... the cops are grabbing people off the street

On April 20, 2001, local Charlottesville activist Alexis Zigler reports from demonstrations in Quebec City,

"shit, just coming into the newsroom as I am typing, the cops are grabbing people off the streets. "snatch and grab" as it is known. I shall go see what's up and keep the head low."

5. the cow shit hit the fan

In November 1996, retired psychologist Dick Abidin recounted his story about a flying call, saying:

"We went to the car dealer where the car was towed and we brought some friends with us and the wife looked at the front of the car which was totally demolished. The hood was crumbled up to the windshield and covered with all kinds of plastery stuff. And out of character one member of my family said, 'Well, that's where the cow (shit) hit the fan. Actually everyone thought I was joking.'"

PISS

There is only one match for the word piss.

to piss off both liberals and conservatives

In a May 16, 2000 C-Ville Weekly article to piss off is mentioned in the context of the introduction of the Black Pachyderm.

"Agnes White has a dream: to piss off both liberals and conservatives."

"'I love that,' she says with relish. Since 1991, White has edited the Charlottesville-Albemarle Tribune. Now she's branching out to claim a national audience with a new magazine called 'Black Pachyderm.'"

FUCK

There are three matches for the word fuck.

1. Fuck Gore too

According to "Brian Booker's [February 3, 2000] Reminscenses of the 2001 Inaugural Protests in Washington, D.C. 11:50 a.m.-Something & K Street", some of the individuals demonstrating against George W. Bush's election were none too satisfied with Al Gore as well.

Brian says,

"The march was halted by a police barricade. Mounting confusion and impatience; a scraggly-looking guy of seemingly questionable reliability reporting word of something going on in the intersection up ahead:

police…tear-gas…anarchists…"You can help them…go through!" I think it later turned out that he was referring to the incident with the bloody-faced kid who was hit in the head with a police "radio" and being treated by medics and so forth. In any case, there were Navy helicopters flying overhead, and a general atmosphere of ominousness, foreboding, and confrontation. One girl shouted "Fuck Gore too," and I internally chided her for sowing potential dissent in the crowd.

2. FUCK DA CDP

In a January 2002 piece written by George Loper on objectionable speech, he mentions FUCK DA CDP [written on the bricks of Charlottesville's Downtown Mall in February 2001 as a phrase which might be considered provocative on the Charlottesville Chalkboard.

3. most graffiti is just "fuck you" on somebody's small business

An April 2002 comment by John Borgmeyer on graffiti and corporations and government states:

"I'm not saying rich people are bad...although some of the rich folks I know were born on third base and walk around acting like they hit a triple. Many, though, like my uncle, are beautiful, hard-working people. I'm not saying vandals are good. Personally, I'd rather see a spray-painted butterfly on a factory wall than a naked model asking me to buy cigarettes. But most grafitti is just "fuck you" on somebody's small business, and that is only spreading hate, not beauty.

So listen you property owners and rich folks out there, some of whom are already jumping down my throat...before you get all defensive, re-read my comments and realize I'm not criticizing you for being ahead of the game, no matter how you got there. Congratulations. Please put your feet up, admire your bank account, and enjoy it while it lasts. If anyone spray paints your front porch, I hope they are arrested. But I believe that as long as too few of us have much more than we need, and too many of us don't have enough, you and your families will never, ever be totally safe, no matter how many prisons or gated communities you build, or how "tough" you get on crime."

CUNT, COCKSUCKER AND MOTHERFUCKER

There were no matches for cunt, cocksucker or motherfucker.

However, while these three search words do not lead from google.com to the Loper website, they do show up on google in conjuction with other Lopers.

On April 13, 2002, google.com had twenty-three matches for Loper paired with cunt, eight matches for Loper paired with cocksucker, and nineteen matches for Loper paired with motherfucker.

[If you are seriously interested, you might wish to match your own name with George Carlin's seven dirty words.]

TITS

And finally, the word tits had one match on the Loper web site.

all your friends will laugh at her pathetic tits

Lyrics from Imitation of Christ by the Psychedelic Furs were mentioned in a January-February piece about fashion designers self-describing themselves as social engineers:

mary mary
mother mother
you and me and
god the father
jesus is a woman too
he looks like all of me and you
your money talks and
all your friends
will laugh at her pathetic tits

NIGGER

"Nigger" is not one of George Carlin's seven dirty words.

However, it was also notably absent in the review of words which lead people to the Loper web site from google.com.

"Nigger" is a word which many people find objectionable and it's use has most recently been considered by Randall Kennedy in his 2002 Pantheon book entitled "nigger - The Strange Career of a Troublesome Word".

And internal search of the Loper web site for the word "nigger" reveals the following seven matches:

1. nigger go home

In a January 1999 article, Delegate Jerrauld C. Jones, D-Norfolk, spoke of the 'legacy of hurt and pain' that the confederate flag causes many black Virginians:

"In 1968, Jones said, when he was given an academic scholarship to the Virginia Episcopal School in Lynchburg, one of 40 awarded to black students chosen to integrate prestigious southern preparatory schools, he found 'nigger go home' sprayed on the wall of his dormitory room in shaving cream 'and lots of confederate flags being waved in defiance'" (Donald P. Baker, The Washington Post, January 26, 1999).

2. Nigger Gin'ral,/Who almost ruined old Virginny!"

In a February 2000 article about Gabrel's Rebellion, Susan DeFord notes:

"Gabriel became a myth, embodied in antebellum folk tunes sung by blacks about the "Nigger Gin'ral,/Who almost ruined old Virginny!" Later in the 19th century, abolitionists revived his tale to promote their cause."

3. 'nigger' and 'kike' and 'nigger jokes' and 'nigger-hater' and 'nigger women' and 'The Nigger of the Narcissus'

A November 1999 Economist article about "Downloading Hate" reads:

AOL has found it difficult even to define hate speech consistently; homosexuals note that the online service bans 'nigger' and 'kike', but not 'faggot' and 'dyke'.

and

To see the problem, try searching for 'nigger' via the AltaVista service. It returns more than 150,000 related pages and a suggestion that the search be expanded to 'nigger jokes', 'nigger-hater' and 'nigger women'. Some of these websites are racist; others are expressions of black defiance against whites. Joseph Conrad's 'The Nigger of the Narcissus: A Tale of the Sea' is there, too."

4. 'Nigger' to 'Negro'

A March 2002 article about banning words as place names reads:

Guidelines for words' usage are determined not by their history (real or imagined), but by someone who cares one way or the other having the power to convince an audience. Groups that have - or gain - political power can have an influence on what they are called. It's no coincidence that it was in 1967, with the civil rights movement growing, that the United States Board on Geographic Names changed 'Nigger' to 'Negro' in 143 American place names."

5. 'just kill a nigger' and 'nigger' to shoot

An article about the trial of African-American Napoleon Beazley (who was executed for a murder he committed when he was seventeen years old), the author noted the unequal justice handed out under Texas law, saying:

"Mr. [Ivan] Holland was attacked by three young white men - not juveniles -who were said to have had a 'Hitler fetish.' One of the men, Todd Rasco 23, said he had bought the shotgun and told his friends he was considering suicide. He said they told him not to kill himself, but instead to 'just kill a nigger.'

They drove around Tyler looking for a 'nigger' to shoot. They found Mr. Holland and Mr. Rasco shot him. That must have helped him over his depression because he never did kill himself.

None of the three men were even subject to the death penalty under Texas law. By itself, the premeditated murder of someone is not a capital offense in Texas. There must be a very specific aggravating circumstance. In the Luttig case [against Napoleon Beazley], it was the theft of the car."

6. Nigers Clear Out and Nigger Creek Road

In a June 2001 article about Juneteenth Day, Charlottesville author Jonathan Coleman mentions a trip to Mexia, Texas, where he recounts the following:

"On my first trip, in 1990, I went out to Booker T. Washington Park (the formal name for Comanche Crossing) and was dismayed by what I saw: graffiti that informed me the "KKK Was Here" and that "Nigers [sic]" should "Clear Out." In a place where streets still had names like Nigger Creek Road, it all seemed sadly consistent. The dance hall and the tabernacle had been destroyed by fires a couple of years earlier, fires whose circumstances were as mysterious as the drownings, or perhaps not so mysterious at all."

7. No Vietcong ever called me nigger!

In a talk about Paul Robeson by Irwin Silber entitled "A Twentieth Century Joshua," the author mentions Muhammad Ali:

There were likewise echoes of Robeson when Muhammad Ali, in refusing to be drafted to fight in Vietnam, declared: "No Vietcong ever called me nigger!" even as hundreds of thousands of young people took to the streets chanting, "Hell, No! We Won't Go!" Few of them would even know who Paul Robeson was. But they were marching on the trail he had blazed.

Aruba-du, ruba-tu, ruba-tu. I was thinking about the curse words and the swear words, the cuss words and the words that you can't say, that you're not supposed to say all the time, ['cause] words or people into words want to hear your words. Some guys like to record your words and sell them back to you if they can, (laughter) listen in on the telephone, write down what words you say. A guy who used to be in Washington knew that his phone was tapped, used to answer, Fuck Hoover, yes, go ahead. (laughter) Okay, I was thinking one night about the words you couldn't say on the public, ah, airwaves, um, the ones you definitely wouldn't say, ever, [']cause I heard a lady say bitch one night on television, and it was cool like she was talking about, you know, ah, well, the bitch is the first one to notice that in the litter Johnie right (murmur) Right. And, uh, bastard you can say, and hell and damn so I have to figure out which ones you couldn't and ever and it came down to seven but the list is open to amendment, and in fact, has been changed, uh, by now, ha, a lot of people pointed things out to me, and I noticed some myself. The original seven words were, shit, piss, fuck, cunt, cocksucker, motherfucker, and tits. Those are the ones that will curve your spine, grow hair on your hands and (laughter) maybe, even bring us, God help us, peace without honor (laughter) um, and a bourbon. (laughter) And now the first thing that we noticed was that word fuck was really repeated in there because the word motherfucker is a compound word and it's another form of the word fuck. (laughter) You want to be a purist it doesn't really -- it can't be on the list of basic words. Also, cocksucker is a compound word and neither half of that is really dirty. The word -- the half sucker that's merely suggestive (laughter) and the word cock is a half-way dirty word, 50% dirty -- dirty half the time, depending on what you mean by it. (laughter) Uh, remember when you first heard it, like in 6th grade, you used to giggle. And the cock crowed three times, heh (laughter) the cock -- three times. It's in the Bible, cock in the Bible. (laughter) And the first time you heard about a cock-fight, remember -- What? Huh? naw. It ain't that, are you stupid? man. (laughter, clapping) It's chickens, you know, (laughter) Then you have the four letter words from the old Anglo-Saxon fame. Uh, shit and fuck. The word shit, uh, is an interesting kind of word in that the middle class has never really accepted it and approved it. They use it like, crazy but it's not really okay. It's still a rude, dirty, old kind of gushy word. (laughter) They don't like that, but they say it, like, they say it like, a lady now in a middle-class home, you'll hear most of the time she says it as an expletive, you know, it's out of her mouth before she knows. She says, Oh shit oh shit, (laughter) oh shit. If she drops something, Oh, the shit hurt the broccoli. Shit. Thank you. (footsteps fading away) (papers ruffling)

Read it! (from audience)

Shit! (laughter) I won the Grammy, man, for the comedy album. Isn't that groovy? (clapping, whistling) (murmur) That's true. Thank you. Thank you man. Yeah. (murmur) (continuous clapping) Thank you man. Thank you. Thank you very much, man. Thank, no, (end of continuous clapping) for that and for the Grammy, man, [']cause (laughter) that's based on people liking it man, yeh, that's ah, that's okay man. (laughter) Let's let that go, man. I got my Grammy. I can let my hair hang down now, shit. (laughter) Ha! So! Now the word shit is okay for the man. At work you can say it like crazy. Mostly figuratively, Get that shit out of here, will ya? I don't want to see that shit anymore. I can't cut that shit, buddy. I've had that shit up to here. I think you're full of shit myself. (laughter) He don't know shit from Shinola. (laughter) you know that? (laughter) Always wondered how the Shinola people feel about that (laughter) Hi, I'm the new man from Shinola. (laughter) Hi, how are ya? Nice to see ya. (laughter) How are ya? (laughter) Boy, I don't know whether to shit or wind my watch. (laughter) Guess, I'll shit on my watch. (laughter) Oh, the shit is going to hit de fan. (laughter) Built like a brick shit-house. (laughter) Up, he's up shit's creek. (laughter) He's had it. (laughter) He hit me, I'm sorry. (laughter) Hot shit, holy shit, tough shit, eat shit, (laughter) shit-eating grin. Uh, whoever thought of that was ill. (murmur laughter) He had a shit-eating grin! He had a what? (laughter) Shit on a stick. (laughter) Shit in a handbag. I always like that. He ain't worth shit in a handbag. (laughter) Shitty. He acted real shitty. (laughter) You know what I mean? (laughter) I got the money back, but a real shitty attitude. Heh, he had a shit-fit. (laughter) Wow! Shit-fit. Whew! Glad I wasn't there. (murmur, laughter) All the animals -- Bull shit, horse shit, cow shit, rat shit, bat shit. (laughter) First time I heard bat shit, I really came apart. A guy in Oklahoma, Boggs, said it, man. Aw! Bat shit. (laughter) Vera reminded me of that last night, ah (murmur). Snake shit, slicker than owl shit. (laughter) Get your shit together. Shit or get off the pot. (laughter) I got a shit-load full of them. (laughter) I got a shit-pot full, all right. Shit-head, shit-heel, shit in your heart, shit for brains, (laughter) shit-face, heh (laughter) I always try to think how that could have originated; the first guy that said that. Somebody got drunk and fell in some shit, you know. (laughter) Hey, I'm shit-face. (laughter) Shitface, today. (laughter) Anyway, enough of that shit. (laughter) The big one, the word fuck that's the one that hangs them up the most. [']Cause in a lot of cases that's the very act that hangs them up the most. So, it's natural that the word would, uh, have the same effect. It's a great word, fuck, nice word, easy word, cute word, kind of. Easy word to say. One syllable, short u. (laughter) Fuck. (Murmur) You know, it's easy. Starts with a nice soft sound fuh ends with a kuh. Right? (laughter) A little something for everyone. Fuck (laughter) Good word. Kind of a proud word, too. Who are you? I am FUCK. (laughter) FUCK OF THE MOUNTAIN. (laughter) Tune in again next week to FUCK OF THE MOUNTAIN. (laughter) It's an interesting word too, [']cause it's got a double kind of a life -- personality -- dual, you know, whatever the right phrase is. It leads a double life, the word fuck. First of all, it means, sometimes, most of the time, fuck. What does it mean? It means to make love. Right? We're going to make love, yeh, we're going to fuck, yeh, we're going to fuck, yeh, we're going to make love. (laughter) we're really going to fuck, yeah, we're going to make love. Right? And it also means the beginning of life, it's the act that begins life, so there's the word hanging around with words like love, and life, and yet on the other hand, it's also a word that we really use to hurt each other with, man. It's a heavy. It's one that you have toward the end of the argument. (laughter) Right? (laughter) You finally can't make out. Oh, fuck you man. I said, fuck you. (laughter, murmur) Stupid fuck. (laughter) Fuck you and everybody that looks like you. (laughter) man. It would be nice to change the movies that we already have and substitute the word fuck for the word kill, wherever we could, and some of those movie cliches would change a little bit. Madfuckers still on the loose. Stop me before I fuck again. Fuck the ump, fuck the ump, fuck the ump, fuck the ump, fuck the ump. Easy on the clutch Bill, you'll fuck that engine again. (laughter) The other shit one was, I don't give a shit. Like it's worth something, you know? (laughter) I don't give a shit. Hey, well, I don't take no shit, (laughter) you know what I mean? You know why I don't take no shit? (laughter) [']Cause I don't give a shit. (laughter) If I give a shit, I would have to pack shit. (laughter) But I don't pack no shit cause I don't give a shit. (laughter) You wouldn't shit me, would you? (laughter) That's a joke when you're a kid with a worm looking out the bird's ass. You wouldn't shit me, would you? (laughter) It's an eight-year-old joke but a good one. (laughter) The additions to the list. I found three more words that had to be put on the list of words you could never say on television, and they were fart, turd and twat, those three. (laughter) Fart, we talked about, it's harmless It's like tits, it's a cutie word, no problem. Turd, you can't say but who wants to, you know? (laughter) The subject never comes up on the panel so I'm not worried about that one. Now the word twat is an interesting word. Twat! Yeh, right in the twat. (laughter) Twat is an interesting word because it's the only one I know of, the only slang word applying to the, a part of the sexual anatomy that doesn't have another meaning to it. Like, ah, snatch, box and pussy all have other meanings, man. Even in a Walt Disney movie, you can say, We're going to snatch that pussy and put him in a box and bring him on the airplane. (murmur, laughter) Everybody loves it. The twat stands alone, man, as it should. And two-way words. Ah, ass is okay providing you're riding into town on a religious feast day. (laughter) You can't say, up your ass. (laughter) You can say, stuff it! (murmur) There are certain things you can say its weird but you can just come so close. Before I cut, I, uh, want to, ah, thank you for listening to my words, man, fellow, uh space travelers. Thank you man for tonight and thank you also. (clapping whistling)

From verbatim transcript of "Filthy Words" (the George Carlin monologue at issue in the Supreme Court case of FCC v. Pacifica Foundation) prepared by the Federal Communications Commission