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Going blue.

Article Excerpt
OKAY. SERIOUSLY. I HAVE A PROBLEM. It's a problem many writers and comedians have. Some who generally love language also deal with it. Fourteen year old boys have this problem, too. In my business it's called "going blue."

Blue is my favorite color for sundry weighty reasons. Comedians use the phrase "going blue" to mean "said something dirty." But there are various levels of going blue. You can look at comedians like Andrew Dice Clay and Pauly Shore and even Bob Saget who go blue simply for the visceral shock. They don't really do anything else. They are just plain filthy. Personally I don't find that funny. It's the sort of cheap blue that would cause the principal to put bag over your head and beat it with a stick.

Then there is the intelligent blue like George Carlin. His sketch "Seven Words You Can Never Say on TV" was brilliant! And it was brilliant without being filthy. It was dirty, but not filthy. He took an objective look at language and dealt with it in an academic way that sort of sanitized it, but still made people uncomfortable....

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