smurf

A Smurf is a small blue humanoid creature that wears a funny hat. "The Smurfs", an animated cartoon, describes the life and times of a small village of smurfs. "Small" being the operative word - their houses are generally made out of mushrooms.

Their social interaction is marked by the following odd behaviours: Each smurf has a task or trade, and is named after it. Thus the smurf in charge of food production is named Chef Smurf, the village handyman is Handy Smurf, and so on. The other name-rule is a primary attribute-based name. There is Clumsy Smurf, Lazy Smurf, and so on. There are also untold numbers of Generic Smurfs who just do whatever the hell it is that generic smurfs do.

A particularly notable feature of the Smurf language is that "smurf" is also a verb, and obvious permutations are adjectives, adverbs, or pretty much any grammatical entity. "Smurf the smurfy smurfoid smurfer into that smurfing smurfed-out smurfable" would appear to be a valid sentence, and be understandable by any random Smurf.

Other than the Smurfs, there are at least two main characters: Gargamel the evil wizard who likes eating smurfs, and his cat, Azrael, who likes the same.

Another interesting fact is that smurfs are described as "three apples high" while simultaneously living in mushrooms. Thus we can deduce that in Belgium, either the apples are very small, or the forests are fraught with humongous mushrooms.

smurf /smerf/ n.

1. [from the soc.motss newsgroup on Usenet, after some obnoxiously gooey cartoon characters] A newsgroup regular with a habitual style that is irreverent, silly, and cute. Like many other hackish terms for people, this one may be praise or insult depending on who uses it. In general, being referred to as a smurf is probably not going to make your day unless you've previously adopted the label yourself in a spirit of irony. Compare old fart. 2. [techspeak] A ping packet with a forged source address sent to some other network's broadcast address. All the machines on the destination network will send a ping response to the forged source address (the victim). This both overloads the victim's network and hides the location of the attacker.

--The Jargon File version 4.3.1, ed. ESR, autonoded by rescdsk.

Smurf (?), v. t. [p. p. & vb Smurfed (?); p. pr. & vb. n. Smurfing.] [AS. smurf, smert, smyart, (and so originally meaning, to affect). Cf. Smurfy to be in a state of achieving (optimistic).]

1.

To affect through conscious action; to have knowledge of a task and cause it to come about; to act in effect of the predicate.

We need to smurf that rock over the hill. B. Smurf

2.

To arrange in a way that affects the position of the subject in relation to the accusative.

Quickly, smurf up behind Azrael while he's distracted. B. Smurf

3.

To fulfil existential fact.

I smurf, therefore I am. B. Smurf

4.

To aid somebody else; to escort; to wait upon; as, to smurf in assistance.

Brainy, will you please smurf me home? Smurfette

© Brainy Smurf 1974.