Sources
Help build the largest human-edited directory on the web.
Submit a site - Become an editor
Wikipedia. Licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License.
Are you an expert in this subject? Join the discussion and share your knowledge at Wikipedia.org.
Smeg (vulgarism)
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
 |
This page has been transwikied to Wiktionary. Because this article has content useful to Wikipedia's sister project Wiktionary, it has been copied to there, and its dictionary counterpart can be found at either Wiktionary:Transwiki:Smeg (vulgarism) or Wiktionary:Smeg (vulgarism). It should no longer appear in Category:Copy to Wiktionary and should not be re-added there. |
Smeg is a mild vulgarism which reached prominence through its use as a supposedly inoffensive expletive in the British sci-fi/sit-com Red Dwarf. The word was used to replace almost every vulgar term used in the show's conversations, with the exception of the very mild. Additionally, the word itself had many variants, including "smegging" and "smeghead"[1].
The show's creators (Grant Naylor) has stated it was not related to a medical term and was a made up swear word. Also, they have consistently claimed that they knew nothing of the word "smegma", and that "smeg" was entirely made up, sounding as it did like a generic, four-letter, single-syllable swear-word that might be used in the future (and so could be used in the programme in place of swear words that, at the time, would not usually be used in mainstream sitcoms).
Lexicographer Tony Thorne, in his 1990 Dictionary of Contemporary Slang (ISBN 0-7475-2856-X), reports instances of "smeg" (and derivatives) being used as a term of "mild contempt and even affection" among "schoolboys, students and punks" as early as the mid-1970s — a decade or so prior to the inception of the Red Dwarf phenomenon — and claims unequivocally that the etymology of the term traces back to "smegma".
In the "Let's Swear" item in Bachelor Boys, the Young Ones book, the character Rick, played by Rik Mayall, calls another character "smeg face".
|
|
|
|---|---|
| Characters: | Dave Lister · Arnold Rimmer · Holly · Cat · Kryten · Kristine Kochanski · Other characters |
| Media: | Episodes · Red Dwarf Remastered · Bodysnatcher · Dad · Identity Within · Prelude to Nanarchy · Dave Hollins: Space Cadet |
| Books: | Infinity Welcomes Careful Drivers · Better Than Life · Last Human · Backwards |
| Concepts: | Computer senility · Dollarpound · Felis sapiens · GELF · Silicon Heaven · Smeg · Space Corps Directives |
| Other: | Rob Grant · Doug Naylor · Grant Naylor · Red Dwarf ships |