Contributions To The English Language
The script allowed the prisoners to swear without offending viewers by using the word "naff" in place of ruder words ("Naff off!", "Darn your own naffing socks", "Doing next to naff all"), thereby popularising a word that had been recorded at least as early as 1966. Ronnie Barker did not claim to have invented it, and in a television interview in 2003 it was explained to him on camera what the word meant, as he hadn't a clue.
A genuine neologism was "nerk", which was used in place of the more offensive "berk". It should be noted that "berk" has changed meaning since its inception, and is generally used now to mean "fool" while the original rhyming slang meaning refers to someone more unpleasant, is more insulting, and far cruder. Another term was "scrote" (presumably derived from scrotum), meaning a nasty, unpleasant person.
Read more about this topic: Porridge (TV series)
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