Posted by: Steve Penney

My most recent YouTube discovery has been the late comedian George Carlin. In the past, I’d heard a few of Carlin’s older stand-up bits but hadn’t really given his work much thought. A friend recently put me on to some of his later work and I was immediately blown away by his humor, stage presence, and most importantly what he had to say, because the bulk of his material wasn’t just humour for humour’s sake, it all pushed the viewer to question the world around them. He had an interesting way of combining humour with extremely topical observances of the world that always left me thinking. The link below is from what I believe is Carlin’s final HBO special (he did 13 of these over his career) and displays his mastery of words and performance. In this case – buzzwords. Anyone in the world of marketing knows the term. If you don’t, see the definition below. I’d be interested to see what people take from this performance and I invite you to check out more of his work as you might find it enlightening, I know I did.

A buzzword (also fashion word and vogue word) is a term of art, salesmanship, politics, or technical jargon[1] that has begun to see use in the wider society outside of its originally narrow technical context by nonspecialists who use the term vaguely or imprecisely. Labeling a term a “buzzword” pejoratively implies that it is now used pretentiously and inappropriately by individuals with little understanding of its actual meaning who are most interested in impressing others by making their discourse sound more esoteric, obscure, and technical than it otherwise would be.

Buzzwords differ from jargon in that jargon is esoteric but precisely defined terminology used for ease of communication between specialists in a given field, whereas a buzzword (which often develops from the appropriation of technical jargon) is often used imprecisely among non-specialists.[1]

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• advertising,
• ethics,
• jargon
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One Response to “Cocked, Locked, and Ready to Rock”

1. Sid Williams says:

   July 21, 2011 at 2:15 pm

   I’ve watched almost everything I could find on YouTube of Carlin. He was brilliant, and funny as hell. Very true that what he has to say is far more important than the humor he adds to it. The humour, however, is what makes you want to listen even more.