Excuse me?

Yes I was wondering if I could… If I could ask you a few questions about what you are doing there?

It seems… what? Sure. When you’re finished.

Alright, thanks. No Problem. So you’ve written… is that chalk? Yeah, okay. You’ve written in chalk on the door of your friend’s house.

It’s her birthday? Yes, I’d gathered as much. But…

Yes, I’m sure she’ll be very surprised. But look, you haven’t written “happy birthday”, have you? You’ve written “Happy Bizzle Dizzle”.

“Happy Bizzle Dizzle Michelle,” specifically. Yes, I think the balloon is a nice touch.

I’m sure you’re right, the whole street will enjoy finding out that today is Michelle’s, er, bizzle dizzle.

No doubt. Not doubt she will. If it were me, I’d be stunned, I promise you. Anyway…

Anyway, look, I wanted to ask, why’d you write “bizzle dizzle”?

Ah. Have you ever watched The Smurfs? The, you know… yes, with the cartoon characters.

Yeah, they were blue.

Yep, little blue people. Anyhow, if you remember they used to replace various words with “smurf”? It occurs to me that you’ve done the same, only with “-izzle”.

What? No, no I’m not. No I can see that clearly. Nothing blue about your skin. Listen, if you’ll indulge me…

It occurs to me that we have an insight into how the Smurfs’ particular language quirk evolved. …. Yes, yes I know it’s a TV show.

Yes, I know TV shows aren’t real.

No, I said before, I am not insinuating that you are… no, you’re not a cartoon character, I can see that.

Anyway, look, in order to make sense of “hand me the smurf” or “bizzle dizzle” you need context. Yeah, context. See, if it wasn’t Michelle’s birthday she might have trouble figuring out what you meant by “Happy Bizzle Dizzle.”

Well, fair enough. Of course you’ve only written it because it’s her birthday. Why are you looking at me like that? Nevermind, don’t answer that. Okay, so back to the Smurfs. At some point the smurfs must have actually known words like “shoe” and “house” and “antelope” and what not. Otherwise, when they said things like “hey, look at that smurf wearing smurfs over by the smurf,” the other Smurfs wouldn’t know what they were talking about. It’s not just context that matters, you also depend on pre-existing knowledge.

Yes, the language can’t have…look, I mean you can’t just develop Smurf language progressively, it has to be a degeneration of a more complete lexicon. Just like…

What? Oh, you know, “set of words”. Sorry, I should have said “Lizzile-Cizzle”.

Haha, no that was a joke. A harmless little joke, I promise you.

Never.

Anyhow, just like your friend Michelle has to know the word “birthday” first, in order for her to understand what you meant by “bizzle-dizzle”.

Yes… no… yes… look, there is a point to all this. I just wanted to know if it had occurred to you that the Smurf children were basically doomed.

No, I’m not some kind of crazy person. Hear me out. Because the Smurf children’s parents never taught them the original words that the Smurfs all replace with “smurf”, they’ll never be able to learn to talk. Context alone is not enough!

Your communication strategy is likewise flawed. Replacing every “B”-word with “bizzle” can’t work in the long-term. People need to know the original words….

What? Look, I just wanted to see if you were aware of…

I give up.

I gizzle-uzzle.

Really? Oh, well then. Smurf you too.

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