7 Deadly Words

George Carlin had a routine he did about the 7 words you can’t say on television, which prompted a Supreme Court decision concerning First Amendment rights.

Under the current administration we now have a list of 7 deadly words that are being struck out of reports, erased from government websites. The forbidden words are: "vulnerable," "entitlement," "diversity," "transgender," "fetus," "evidence-based" and "science-based."

Specifically the CDC, Center for Disease Control, the people who work to prevent the spread of Zika and bird flu, who fight ebola—are being told what words they can and cannot use. In the bigger scope of things I would much rather have people in place to react aggressively against the plague than those same people worrying about or busy cutting and replacing in their reports the word “fetus”. In ten years’ time that fetus will thank you, for ignoring the list and simply doing your job.

I can’t imagine Trump made up this list. I can’t imagine him even using the word vulnerable. No, this has Mike Pence’s fingerprints all over it.

But let’s think about this for a second. I’m a word person. Words mean a lot to me, and lately I’ve been ravaged by words. Just the mention of certain words trigger something inside of me.

What if we let them have “fetus” if Trump promises not to grab pussy. What if we ban “pussy” from his vocabulary? How about vulnerable, they can have it for the word “loser.” Trump likes to Tweet that certain people are losers—let’s just put an X through that one right now. He also overuses “weak” to describe those on his hit list. Hmmm what if they were just vulnerable? If he gives us SAD we’ll toss out science-based. Maybe use a euphemism for it like SB. Same thing with evidence-based. I mean there will still be research, data that underlies decisions (I hope) so they might want to consider some kind of shorthand. Besides is the White House actually reading these reports?

“Transgender” is a tricky one. Are they saying there are no more transgendered, do they mean they don’t exist? Or if they exist do we acknowledge them. Do we recognize the special needs of any one group? Medical oversight of hormonal treatment programs, gender reassignment surgeries will these be banned, how about stringent psychological analysis that are used to deter rather than support or access patients with gender dysphoria. Or maybe they might want to get rid of the word gender. We can negotiate!

Terrific, amazing, tremendous, bigly—you can have those if we get to keep diversity. Entitlement is a head scratcher. I mean isn’t this latest tax bill—the one they’re trying to push through Congress before the holiday break—isn’t that an entitlement for the richest of the rich.

Here’s the rub: who gets to define, who gets to say what words scientists can use, cite in their reports? Republicans and Libertarians like to rant about governmental over-reach—isn’t this an intrusion? A politicization of language?

I for one when the zombie flu breaks out do not want to be quibbling about words while the CDC gets overrun and the world wiped out by flesh-eating bacteria—or, yes, it could be 7 deadly words.