{"id":273,"date":"2008-06-24T12:00:18","date_gmt":"2008-06-24T18:00:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.kirkmahoney.com\/blog\/2008\/06\/lessons-learned-from-george-carlin\/"},"modified":"2008-10-26T12:29:57","modified_gmt":"2008-10-26T18:29:57","slug":"lessons-learned-from-george-carlin","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.kirkmahoney.com\/wordpress\/blog\/2008\/06\/lessons-learned-from-george-carlin\/","title":{"rendered":"Lessons Learned from George Carlin"},"content":{"rendered":"

I saw the news yesterday that comedian George Carlin died Sunday evening.<\/p>\n

Carlin’s death made me question why he was and is one of my all-time favorite comedians.<\/p>\n

The answer is the communication<\/em> lessons that I learned from Carlin.<\/p>\n

Lesson Number 1:<\/strong> Be willing to question everything, especially when it comes to language.<\/em><\/p>\n

Carlin’s legendary ability to play with the English language was, and continues to be, an inspiration to me.<\/p>\n

For example, one of his popular jokes was: Why do we park on a driveway and drive on a parkway?<\/p>\n

The more easily that one can question this or that about language, the better that one becomes at communication, in my opinion.<\/p>\n

Lesson Number 2:<\/strong> Profanity is punctuation only when used in moderation.<\/em><\/p>\n

Carlin was famous for “the seven words” that still cannot be said today on broadcast television.<\/p>\n

But, if you looked more deeply into it, you know that Carlin saw profanity as punctuation for expressing one’s passion about something.<\/p>\n

Those comedians who take profanity overboard in their acts don’t seem to understand this lesson.<\/p>\n

Excessive profanity in a comedian’s performance is analogous to ending sentences with lots of exclamation marks!!!!!<\/p>\n

In other words, profanity used excessively distracts from one’s message, and profanity tends to get duller with overuse.<\/p>\n

Lesson Number 3:<\/strong> One can find humor in anything.<\/em><\/p>\n

This has to be one of the best lessons for a happy life.<\/p>\n

For helping one to find humor in anything, I highly recommend George Carlin’s book Brain Droppings<\/a>\"\".<\/p>\n

Carlin excelled at turning language inside out, upside down, and backward. Finding humor in anything requires that ability.<\/p>\n

So my prescription for a happy life would include honing one’s ability to play with language.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I saw the news yesterday that comedian George Carlin died Sunday evening. Carlin’s death made me question why he was and is one of my all-time favorite comedians. The answer is the communication lessons that I learned from Carlin. Lesson Number 1: Be willing to question everything, especially when it comes to language. Carlin’s legendary…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-273","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"yoast_head":"\nLessons Learned from George Carlin - Kirk Mahoney . com<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.kirkmahoney.com\/wordpress\/blog\/2008\/06\/lessons-learned-from-george-carlin\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Lessons Learned from George Carlin - Kirk Mahoney . com\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"I saw the news yesterday that comedian George Carlin died Sunday evening. 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