Dalek - Entry Into Popular Culture

Entry Into Popular Culture

The word "Dalek" has entered major dictionaries, including the Oxford English Dictionary, which defines it as "a type of robot appearing in 'Doctor Who', a B.B.C. Television science-fiction programme; hence used allusively." English-speakers sometimes use the term metaphorically to describe people, usually figures of authority, who act like robots unable to break from their programming; for example, John Birt, the Director-General of the BBC from 1992 to 2000, was publicly called a "croak-voiced Dalek" by playwright Dennis Potter in the MacTaggart Lecture at the 1993 Edinburgh Television Festival.

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