If you don't know what smeg means, you are a smeghead.
You are smegging useless. Every last smeg knows what smeg means. It is the rude word of the future. It is the word we will use when we are finally tired of using every other rude word. It could be a few years yet.
The word smeg was invented by the writers of the science-fiction sit-com Red Dwarf, which returned for a tenth series on the Dave channel last night. I am pleased about this. This is the show that has a talking cat and robots that go to heaven. And besides, the return of Red Dwarf means more people will get to know the word smeg.
Not that it's the only weird word invented by Red Dwarf, or other science fiction shows and books for that matter. Science fiction has given us thousands of words. Such as:
Grok: Invented by the writer Robert Heinlein in the 1960s, it means to feel empathy with, to enjoy, to establish a rapport with. As in "I grok you" or "I would really like to grok you". Try this on girls in bars and see how you get on.
Dalek: Invented by the Doctor Who writer Terry Nation, the word means a faceless, poisonous alien who has no empathy with humans. The word can also be used to mean a traffic warden who has to give you a ticket because he's started writing it.
Blinovitch limitation effect: Another one from Doctor Who. It is the rule of physics that says you cannot go back in time to change what has happened in the past. It is often experienced by people with hangovers.
Klingon: the language spoken by the race of aliens in Star Trek and by a few geeks who should get out more. Or as they would say in Klingon: chugh soh lah vam soh 'oh.
Belter: A word to describe someone who lives in an asteroid belt, invented by the writer Larry Niven. For someone who lives in Scotland, it has an entirely different meaning.
Parallel universe: A place where many things are the same as this universe but some things are subtly different. In a parallel universe, for instance, One Direction would not exist, we would all still like Nick Clegg. and the Department for Transport would make a terribly good job of the West Coast rail bidding process.
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