One of the reasons George Carlin is, in my estimation, one of the greatest comics of all time is because I keep going back to his work. This time, his bit where he tells us to be suspicious when people keep adding syllables to existing terms to diminish the impact. How “shell shock,” a powerful phrase, eventually become “post-traumatic stress disorder.” There was this term “shell shock,” and it is highly evocative. It’s direct, and the alliteration is powerful. It brings to mind the horrors of war.
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