I saw the news yesterday that comedian George Carlin died Sunday evening.

Carlin’s death made me question why he was and is one of my all-time favorite comedians.

The answer is the communication lessons that I learned from Carlin.

Lesson Number 1: Be willing to question everything, especially when it comes to language.

Carlin’s legendary ability to play with the English language was, and continues to be, an inspiration to me.

For example, one of his popular jokes was: Why do we park on a driveway and drive on a parkway?

The more easily that one can question this or that about language, the better that one becomes at communication, in my opinion.

Lesson Number 2: Profanity is punctuation only when used in moderation.

Carlin was famous for “the seven words” that still cannot be said today on broadcast television.

But, if you looked more deeply into it, you know that Carlin saw profanity as punctuation for expressing one’s passion about something.

Those comedians who take profanity overboard in their acts don’t seem to understand this lesson.

Excessive profanity in a comedian’s performance is analogous to ending sentences with lots of exclamation marks!!!!!

In other words, profanity used excessively distracts from one’s message, and profanity tends to get duller with overuse.

Lesson Number 3: One can find humor in anything.

This has to be one of the best lessons for a happy life.

For helping one to find humor in anything, I highly recommend George Carlin’s book Brain Droppings.

Carlin excelled at turning language inside out, upside down, and backward. Finding humor in anything requires that ability.

So my prescription for a happy life would include honing one’s ability to play with language.

If you are a frequent reader of my blog, then you probably noticed a new button in the sidebar today.

I have added a “Listen to this site with Jott Feeds” button beneath the “Subscribe to Full Feed!” RSS link.

As you should know, you can add my text feed through the “Subscribe to Full Feed!” link. This lets you, for example, make any of my recent posts appear as a link at the top of your Gmail inbox.

In contrast, the “Listen to this site with Jott Feeds” button lets you use Jott to listen to my blog posts over your telephone instead of reading my blog posts in a browser.

In fact, among its many features, Jott lets you listen to any of your favorite RSS feeds by telephone, not just the posts from Kirk Mahoney dot com.

Once you have a Jott account and have added my Jott feed to your Jott account, you can call 1-866-JOTT-123 (1-866-568-8123) from your telephone and say “Jott Feeds” and then “Kirk Mahoney dot com” to hear my blog posts in reverse chronological order — in other words, to hear my latest post first.

Now that I have the “Listen to this site with Jott Feeds” button on my website, I will be writing posts for listeners as well as for readers. Please bear with me while I master how to nudge the Jott text-to-speech system into saying exactly what I want listeners to hear and understand.

Please let me know your opinion of using Jott to listen to my blog posts by going to my Contact page, selecting Feedback, entering your comments, and submitting your message.

I highly recommend Jott and my Jott feed for helping you to communicate better.

Check out Jott today!

Merry Christmas, 2007.

On this day of giving and receiving, please remember those who can give and receive less.

In particular, please think of the children who now face a future with lowest literacy proficiency. These children need our help, and I again want to remind you about my article about what you can do.

If you had never learned to read or write, what would your world be like today? Can you imagine being surrounded by people who cannot read or write, or read or write well?

“Our Future Depends on Our Literacy” challenges you to get involved with an organization that knows that our future depends on our literacy.

Please read the article and then take action in whatever way works for you.

Thank you. By giving a little, you can help others and get a tax deduction before the year ends.