I don't know if it's AmE or my ignorance, but I had never heard the term before I read this thread.
Monty Python made a lot of jokes about smegma.
They used "smeg", which was never given a specific definition (although the intended meaning was clearly a general curse word) but, according to t'internet, Robert Llewellyn (Kryten) later asserted that it was a shortened version of "smegma".And Red Dwarf used it as a general curse word.
I don't think I want to eat anything from one of their ovens!I'm going to assume that the Italian home appliance company wasn't similarly conceived as an abbreviation.
I imagine there are a lot of people who aren't/weren't familiar with the full word at all and just thought that "Smeg!" was an invented exclamation.What else would it be short for? I never thought that that needed clarification.
Great show! One of my all time favorite British shows.