Sunday, February 23, 2014

Blog 6: "Count the Superfluous Redundant Pleonastic Tautologies"


 
www.thegreatdeejays.com
George Carlin was more than a comedian, he was a master wordsmith.  Here's an essay he wrote on tautologies, the saying of the same thing twice in different words.

“My fellow countrymen, I speak to you as coequals, knowing you are deserving of the honest truth. And let me warn you in advance, my subject matter con­cerns a serious crisis caused by an event in my past history: the execution-style killing of a security guard on a delivery truck. At that particular point in time, I found myself in a deep depression, making mental errors which seemed as though they might threaten my future plans. I am not over-exaggerating.

I needed a new beginning, so I decided to pay a social visit to a personal friend with whom I share the same mutual objectives and who is one of the most unique individuals I have ever personally met. The end result was an un­expected surprise. When I reiterated again to her the fact that I needed a fresh start, she said I was exactly right; and, as an added plus, she came up with a fi­nal solution that was absolutely perfect.

Based on her past experience, she felt we needed to join together in a com­mon bond for a combined total of twenty-four hours a day, in order to find some new initiatives. What a novel innovation! And, as an extra bonus, she presented me with the free gift of a tuna fish. Right away I noticed an immedi­ate positive improvement. And although my recovery is not totally complete, the sum total is I feel much better now knowing I am not uniquely alone.”

Behind Carlin's comic observations lay the sharp linguistic insights of a self-described "disappointed idealist."
"Question everything you read or hear or see or are told," he recommended in a 2004 CNN interview. "Question it. And try to see the world for what it actually is, as opposed to what someone or some company or some organization or some government is trying to represent it as, or present it as, however they've mislabeled it or dressed it up or told you."

Now that Carlin has passed on, kicked off, checked out, made his exit, gone to glory, cashed in his chips, and joined the great majority to sleep the big sleep, we wouldn't dare say nice things about him. It's too late for that.


 

1 comment:

  1. George Carlin was a very funny individual, I particularly enjoy his older stuff a lot more that his more recent stuff, I felt that he went from crazy and taboo i.e. (class clown and 7 words you can't say on TV) to a more satirical and critical observations of the world around us especially the U.S. and his disgust with how our world has deteriorated into something he seemed to hate, although a lot of people loved this about him he did say a lot of things people were thinking.

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