Profanity everywhere is mourning the loss this week of one of its greatest supporters. George Carlin has checked out at age 71 after being admitted to a hospital in the US earlier this week for chest pains.

If you’re unfamiliar with Carlin’s comedy style, think of a mutant Jerry Seinfeld/Eddie Murphy concoction and you’re still somewhere shy of the mark.

Carlin was much more than a comic; he was an artist and a counter-cultural icon whom pushed the biggest, reddest buttons conservative Americans had to offer. One of Carlin’s most famous shows, Seven Words You Can Never Say on Television, was the subject of great controversy. When the routine was re-broadcast on radio in 1978, the Federal Communications Commission took the broadcaster to the Supreme Court.

The top court in the US ruled that the words cited in Carlin's routine were indecent, and that the government's broadcast regulator could ban them from being aired at times when children might be listening.