{"id":3535,"date":"2022-05-15T12:30:25","date_gmt":"2022-05-15T16:30:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thatwhitepaperguy.com\/?p=3535"},"modified":"2022-05-16T06:55:26","modified_gmt":"2022-05-16T10:55:26","slug":"white-papers-and-george-carlin","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thatwhitepaperguy.com\/white-papers-and-george-carlin\/","title":{"rendered":"White papers and… George Carlin?"},"content":{"rendered":"

George Carlin was the last person you’d expect to have anything to say about white papers.<\/h2>\n

The trail-blazing American comic was better known for his profane and cutting social criticism.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

But I’ve discovered a strong link between one of the comic’s lifelong preoccupations and B2B content writing.<\/p>\n

Who was George Carlin?<\/h3>\n

Any Baby Boomer likely remembers George Carlin as the original counterculture\u00a0comedian.<\/p>\n

He was a frequent guest on The Tonight Show<\/em> with Johnny Carson, where one of his classic characters\u00a0was The Hippy Dippy Weatherman<\/a>.<\/p>\n

He created\u00a0more than 20 comedy\u00a0albums, did 14 HBO\u00a0TV specials, and gave many\u00a0stand-up shows, especially on college campuses.<\/p>\n

He hosted the first-ever episode of Saturday Night Live<\/i> in 1975.<\/p>\n

Probably Carlin’s best-known piece is his “Seven Words You Can Never Say on Television<\/a>” which he used to skewer\u00a0the TV network censors of the day.<\/p>\n

Carlin continued to\u00a0create new material and give shows until a week before he died in 2008 from heart failure. His website<\/a> and Twitter feed<\/a> are still going strong.<\/p>\n

Carlin’s fellow comics idolized him<\/h3>\n

For example, here’s some of what comedian Jerry Seinfeld wrote in The New York Times<\/em>\u00a0on June 24, 2008 a few days after Carlin died:<\/p>\n

“George downright invented modern American stand-up comedy…\u00a0He worked over an idea like a diamond cutter\u00a0with facets and angles and refractions of light… Everything he did just had this gleaming wonderful precision and originality.”<\/p>\n

Here’s what author\/satirist\u00a0Tony Hendra said\u00a0about Carlin\u00a0in The Huffington Post<\/em>:<\/p>\n

“His mature pieces were essays, broadsides, jazz-like solos, based on omnivorous reading and a steely logic… He had a genius for distilling a lot of information and complex issues into a few succinct and hilarious sentences.”<\/p>\n

His\u00a0ongoing influence<\/h3>\n

Many see Carlin, especially in his golden years, as a philosopher\/poet who was unflinchingly honest in his critiques of late 20th-century American\u00a0culture.<\/p>\n

Carlin’s brilliance was sometimes clouded by his profanity. But more often than not, I find myself agreeing with his\u00a0sentiments.<\/p>\n

For example: “Don’t just teach your children to read. Also teach your children to question what they read. Teach them to question everything.”<\/p>\n

(There’s some debate about his exact phrasing, but he did put forth this idea.)<\/p>\n

\"cover<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

So imagine my surprise when I discovered that Carlin also wrote four books that together sold close to a million copies.<\/p>\n

His final book, although he started it first, is a quasi-autobiography called Last Words. <\/em><\/p>\n

Y<\/em>ou can listen to a multi-part audio extract starting here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Carlin on language<\/h3>\n

Here’s the point: Carlin cared passionately about words.<\/p>\n

And he cared about the way language is abused for political or commercial purposes.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Most of all, he hated political correctness and euphemistic language.<\/p>\n

“Not all euphemisms are alike, but they have one thing in common; they obscure meaning rather than enhance it; they shade the truth,” he wrote in his hilarious book When Will Jesus Bring the Pork Chops? <\/em>(page 6)<\/p>\n

By the way, he noted that this title managed to offend three of the world’s major religions, plus vegetarians!<\/p>\n

“There is no part of American life that hasn’t been soiled by the new, softer, artificial language. It’s everywhere,” Carlin complained. (page 102)<\/p>\n

And he correctly analyzed, I think, why this trend has grown\u00a0until we hear a constant stream of euphemisms in most B2B marketing today.<\/p>\n

The following table shows the six rationales for using euphemisms that Carlin listed, along with\u00a0a modern example from me.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\t\n\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t
Carlin's reason<\/strong><\/th>My modern-day example<\/strong><\/th>\n<\/tr>\n<\/thead>\n
To avoid unpleasant realities<\/td>Not a problem<\/em>, but an issue<\/em><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
To make things sound more important<\/td>Not a product<\/em>, but a solution<\/em><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
To meet the demands of marketers<\/td>Your client insists you insert a phrase like \u201cseamless integration with legacy IT infrastructure\u201c<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Pretentiousness<\/td>Not processing a return<\/em>, but reverse fulfilment<\/em><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
To boost employee
\nself-esteem<\/td>		Most employees are managers<\/em>,
\neven if no one reports to them<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
To be politically correct<\/td>Not disabled<\/em>, but differently-abled<\/em><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n

 <\/p>\n

What writers can learn from Carlin<\/h3>\n

The job of any writer is to avoid using flabby, generic, inoffensive, cuddly\u00a0terms.<\/p>\n

Our job\u2014as Strunk & White surely agree\u2014is to use crisp, clear and direct language to illuminate the truth, rather than obscure it.<\/p>\n

This applies directly to B2B content and copywriting, and above all to white papers.<\/p>\n

No one downloads a white paper hoping to find pretentious euphemisms and marketing-speak.<\/p>\n

Survey after survey shows that’s what business readers hate the most: getting a sales pitch instead of solid, helpful information.<\/p>\n

[Tweet \"What copywriters can learn from George Carlin.\"]<\/pre>\n
So here’s what copywriters can learn from George Carlin:<\/p>\n