Editing Seven dirty words (section)

{{Use American English|date=May 2025}}
{{Short description|Words traditionally disallowed in U.S. broadcast radio and television}}
{{Redirect|7 words|other uses|Seven words (disambiguation){{!}}Seven words}}
{{Use mdy dates|date=May 2025}}
[[File:Seven Dirty Words WBAI.jpg|thumbnail|right|A poster in a [[WBAI]] broadcast booth which warns radio broadcasters against using the words]]

The '''seven dirty words''' are seven English language [[profanity]] words that American comedian [[George Carlin]] first listed in his 1972 "Seven Words You Can Never Say on Television" [[monologue]].<ref name=umkc>{{cite web|first=George|last=Carlin|editor=Linder, Doug|url=http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/conlaw/filthywords.html|title=Filthy Words by George Carlin|publisher=[[University of Missouri-Kansas City School of Law]]|url-status=dead|access-date=March 11, 2017|website=Exploring Constitutional Conflicts|quote=The following is a verbatim transcript of "Filthy Words" (the George Carlin monologue at issue in the Supreme Court case of FCC v. Pacifica Foundation) prepared by the Federal Communications Commission...|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110123114427/http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/conlaw/filthywords.html|archive-date=January 23, 2011}}</ref> The words, in the order Carlin listed them, are: "[[shit]]", "[[wikt:piss|piss]]", "[[fuck]]", "[[cunt]]", "[[wikt:cocksucker|cocksucker]]", "[[motherfucker]]", and "[[wikt:tits|tits]]".<ref name=umkc/><ref>James Sullivan: [https://books.google.com/books?id=IWYmZd1T3HkC&q=seven+dirty+words+piss ''Seven Dirty Words: The Life and Crimes of George Carlin'']. {{ISBN|9780786745920}}. p. 4</ref> 

These words were considered highly inappropriate and unsuitable for [[Broadcasting in the United States|broadcast on the public airwaves]] in the United States, whether radio or television. As such, they were avoided in scripted material and [[bleep censor]]ed in the rare cases in which they were used. Broadcast standards differ in different parts of the world, then and now, although most of the words on Carlin's original list remain taboo on American [[Terrestrial television|broadcast television]]. The list was not an official enumeration of forbidden words, but rather were concocted by Carlin to flow better in a comedy routine. Nonetheless, a radio broadcast featuring these words led to a [[U.S. Supreme Court|Supreme Court]] 5–4 decision in 1978 in ''[[FCC v. Pacifica Foundation]]'' that the FCC's declaratory ruling did not violate either the First or Fifth Amendments, thus helping define the extent to which the federal government could regulate speech on broadcast television and radio in the United States.