I’ve received a barrage of emails (well, two or three) concerning this weekend’s “Wait Wait.” Particularly, you wanted to know about my story for the Bluff the Listener round, wherein I claimed that a TV writer had worked all seven of George Carlin’s notorious Forbidden Words into a single line of dialogue. “Where were the words?” you asked, “May I examine said sentence?”
Well, here it is. But before you read the story, remember this: I’m proud of it, of course, but it was a fake story. Yes, there is a man by that name who writes for said TV show, he’s a friend of mine, but he never did this thing. Never. I made it up. [Sorry, Aaron.]
Okay? Here, then, is the story:
It was two years ago, when TV writer Aaron Zelman bet his friend that he could somehow work George Carlin’s famously forbidden 7 dirty words onto a single episode of “Law and Order.” This week, it was revealed in Entertainment Weekly that that not only did he succeed, he actually doubled his winnings by working all seven words into the same sentence. In order to do so, Zelman had to hide the words in and between other words, make the murder weapon a badminton birdie, and create a victim named “Therfa Kerwin,” but he did it, and it managed to get by the censors. The sentence, which I will now read in the most innocent possible manner, was… “But it’s hard, man, your country tells you “too bad - it’s just a shuttlecock, sucker,” but to me there’s mo’ - Therfa Kerwin would wish it would have come off a carbine pistol.” Thus, the seven words, and a big win for Zelman. After hearing about this, “Law and Order” executive producer Dick Wolf said he was perplexed but “curiously proud” of the achievement.





9 comments
Steve
September 21, 2003 at 9:19 am
1Even in print, knowing they were there, it took me a good fifteen minutes to find them all. Pretty tricky with using the fact that one of the seven dirty words actually contains another (so really there’s only six). Ah yes, nothing better than first getting up on sunday morning looking for dirty words.
sly
September 21, 2003 at 9:55 am
2You’re a genius of the first order.
Can you do this with Carlin’s “Revised Forbidden Words” list?
adam
September 21, 2003 at 1:19 pm
3Pretty tricky with using the fact that one of the seven dirty words actually contains another (so really there’s only six).
Actually, that other (shorter) word IS in there as well. It’s just very sneakily hidden.
Don
September 21, 2003 at 1:46 pm
4Adam
Your obfuscatory excellence would undoubtedly place you high on a short list of people who could ghostwrite for the Shrub and His Shrubites.
Too bad your other qualities will automatically disqualify you.
P.S.
Thanks for providing the sentence in its written form. I was almost totally frustrated trying to dissect and reconstruct your offering as I was listening to it.
Steve G.
September 21, 2003 at 1:56 pm
5For your edification.
“But it’s hard, man, your country tells you ‘too bad - it’s just a shuttlecock, sucker,’ but to me there’s mo’ - Therfa Kerwin would wish it would have come off a carbine pistol.”
buT IT’S
COUNTry
shuttle…ok, we all caught that one.
MO’ - THERFA KERwin (I think we all got that one, too.)
wiSH IT
oFF A Carbine
PIStol
We are all enlightened now.
John Isbell
September 21, 2003 at 5:09 pm
6Not worthy! Not worthy!
Murray
September 21, 2003 at 6:44 pm
7This would make a great puzzle for Will Shorts on Sunday’s Weekend Edition. It’s brilliant, unfortunately there does seem to be one problem.
Anonymous
September 22, 2003 at 8:11 pm
8I was listening in amazement on Saturday morning while driving…thanks Adam for posting the text.
I might have to go the WWDTM archives and audio-grab me Adam saying the words!
Brilliant!
turnkey business websites
January 28, 2006 at 2:57 pm
9Too bad your other qualities will automatically disqualify you.