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.

It should be noted that before the smurfs became an animated cartoon they had their own comic, drawn by belgian illustrator Peyo. They made their first appearance in Johan and Peewit adventure in 1958.

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.

SMOP = S = SNAFU principle

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.

I was scouring out the cupboard in my old bedroom, and what do you think I found? Smurfs! The little blue bastards had somehow infested my wardrobe! No! Where's my mallet?!

Actually, these were the little figures you used to be able to buy everywhere - and by everywhere, I mean that in New Zealand they were only available at BP service stations. My grandfather used to send them to me, my father bought them for me, and mum bought me Alchemist Smurf one day… and then I turned seven and didn't care about them any more. I had about thirty or so of them. They were buried in a box through several moves and forgotten.

I took the remains of the Smurf collection out and said "Do you know anyone who would want these?" to my mother, assuming she would have some idea who to pass them on to. She decided to see what happened if she put them on TradeMe, which is the New Zealand version of eBay. They sold for $12, which is pretty good considering they were mostly boring ones and I was going to throw them out if no-one wanted them.

Then I found out about Smurf collectors. Apparently all the Smurfs I had were re-issues from the original two lines. I used to have Astro Smurf, which is possibly worth its weight in gold providing the goldfish bowl helmet is still intact. I'm damned if I know what happened to the bulk of my Smurf collection, but I'm wondering if it's buried in another box somewhere. Possibly they all got lost, or were appropriated by my siblings. Anyway, the moral of the story is: If you have a pile of Smurfs in a box somewhere and don't want them, you can actually sell them online despite all reservations you may have about how much someone will want a pile of worn novelty figurines of little blue thieves from your childhood. Make the buyer pay for shipping if you can - they're probably fanatical lunatics, so of course they'll pay.

The purpose of this rather obvious story is to point out that life imitates art: You can turn Smurfs into gold. Gargamel would be pleased.

The term "Smurf" has picked up a new slang meaning, with its origin in online chess, on sites like chess.com. Among online chess players, a "smurf" is someone who has a secondary account with a purposely low ELO rating, making themselves appear much worse of a player than they are. This extends to players such as Grandmaster Hikaru Nakamura, one of the best chess players alive today. While under normal circumstances, smurfing is considered to be against the spirit of the game, it is allowed in certain situations, such as when a great player wishes to engage in self-handicapping and play against normal players. Chess.com, for example, condones Nakamura's use of smurf accounts when engaging in bongcloud and Botez Gambit speedruns.