THE VIDEO SHELF · euphemistic language
George Carlin on soft language
A clip from George Carlin's 1990 special 'Doin' It Again' in which he describes how American English has been sterilized with euphemisms, using examples such as shell shock becoming PTSD.
Why HN readers recommended it
HN reaches for this clip whenever a thread involves euphemism or corporate and sanitized phrasing.
This is a summary from the source dataset, not an endorsement by Hacker News or the video creator.
Video & recommendation details
- Creator / channel
- Rob Logan
- Topic
- euphemistic language
- Format
- comedy
- Level
- general
- HN recommenders in dataset
- 2
- HN mentions in dataset
- 9
- Recommendation years in dataset
- 2015–2026
These counts and years describe the included Hacker News records; they are not YouTube views or the video’s publication date.
From the original HN conversations
Excerpts from the recorded comments. Follow each source for the full comment and surrounding discussion.
If there existed some form of global consensus across the English-speaking world on what the inoffensive version is, I'd be happy to abide by it. In the meantime, suggesting that people on a venue as global as HN have some sort of a responsibility to …
keldaris on Hacker News · 2019-07
In Living without the modern browserIn our entitled and highly litigious society I call this Corporate Normal Form. First Corporate Normal Form is messaging derogatories, or things perceived as such, to have a unoffensive coating and makes speaking about them not immediately trigger your fight or flight response. On a …
barelysapient on Hacker News · 2023-09
In Leaked screenshot shows Amazon now tracking individual employee attendance
Summaries, classifications and recommendation records are from the HackerTube source dataset. Read about this library and its limitations.