You know when you've been Clegged
By Ned Simons - 1st March 2011
Harriet Harman may have been spending some time on the Urban Dictionary website.
Mocking Nick Clegg during deputy prime minister's questions this afternoon, Labour's deputy leader said there was a new word "Clegged", meaning sell-out.
How the Labour benches laughed.
The slang website defines the term Clegged Out as: "The process of having sold out, especially to a system or body that directly undermines the principles and values you have long adhered to.
"Derived from the actions of the leader of the Liberal Democrat party, following the 2010 United Kingdom General Election."
It offers this example: "I just found out that Innocent Smoothies have totally Clegged out to Coca-Cola."
The Oxford English Dictionary Online recently added some new words to its library but while 'alternative vote' and 'big society' were added, 'Clegged' is yet to make the grade.
Another addition is the phrase 'thousand-yard stare' which the OED defines as "a vacant or unfocused gaze into the distance, seen as characteristic of a war-weary or traumatized soldier" – which coincidentally is how Clegg looked towards the end of this afternoon's DPMQs.
Have your say...
Please enter your comments below.