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Smeg! - Futuristic insult (equivalent
to our four letter curse words) often used by space castaway Dave
Lister (Craig Charles) on the sci-fi comedy RED DWARF/BBC/1988+.
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Lister: |
Oh
smeg! What the smeggin' smeg's he smeggin' done?
He's smeggin' killed me!" ("Bodyswap" episode)
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Lister: |
You
see I try sir. I'm not an insubordinate man by nature.
I try and respect and everything, but it's not easy because
he's such a smeghead. |
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Rimmer: |
Did
you hear that sir? Lister, do you have any conception
of the penalty for describing a superior technician as a
smeghead? |
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Captain: |
Oh
Rimmer, you are a smeghead.
("The End" episode) |
The show's creator Grant Naylor [a collective name for writers
Rob Grant and Doug Naylor] explained their reason for choosing "Smeg"
saying, "We wanted to invent a futuristic curse word which had the
right sort of consonant and vowel arrangement to make it sound like
a genuine . . . curse word."
Doug Naylor later mentioned during an
online chat session that "I think it's Latin for clean, also there's
an Italian washing machine company called Smeg. Also each of the
letters S-M-E-G stand for smelting metal and something to do with
the washing machine process."
Some fans of the series have claimed
that "Smeg" is a derivation of the word "Smegma" but reportedly, the
authors have denied that interpretation.
The Random House Dictionary
2nd Edition Unabridged describes "Smegma " as "a thick, cheese-like
sebaceous secretion that collects beneath the foreskin or around the
clitoris." Smeg! See also -
SPACECRAFT:
"Red Dwarf"
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