Entry · catalog no. 1168
-izzle
/ /ˈɪz.əl/ /IZ-uhl
suffix · Philadelphia schoolyards (the -iz- infix, recorded 1980); East Oakland and Vallejo, California (the -eezy and -izzle suffix, mid-1990s); Long Beach and Los Angeles (national popularization, 2000–2004) · 1980s
✓ Verified
1.
A word-final substitution that replaces everything after a word opening consonant with -izzle: sure becomes shizzle, nephew becomes nizzle, house becomes hizzle, for sure becomes fo shizzle. It is not random. The opening consonant is preserved so the original word remains recoverable to anyone inside the code and muddied to anyone outside it, which is the entire design. As speech play it belongs to a long line of Black in-group codes that convert ordinary talk into performance and testing ground at once — you demonstrate membership by keeping up. Its rhythmic payoff is real: the added syllables give a phrase swing it did not have.
“Fo shizzle, I will be at the house by nine.”
2.
The related medial infix -iz-, inserted after the first consonant of a word rather than replacing its ending: place becomes plizace, moving becomes mizzoving, Barbara becomes Bilzarbra. This is the older and more systematic of the two patterns and the one actually recorded on Frankie Smith 1980 Double Dutch Bus, where whole sentences run in it. It is also the form that survives in fixed words like shiznit.
“Yizzall bizzetter mizzove — we are plizzaying dizzouble dizzutch.”
Origin & Attribution
Two misattributions need correcting, and correcting the first is not enough. The popular story credits Snoop Dogg, a Long Beach rapper, with inventing this. He did not, and he has said so — he told the Portland Mercury he brought it to the mainstream but that the way of speaking originated in Northern California. The usual correction is to hand the credit instead to Frankie Smith, the Philadelphia songwriter whose 1980 WMOT single Double Dutch Bus put whole conversations in -iz- on wax. That is closer, but still wrong in the same way. Smith did not invent it either. He told Dick Clark on American Bandstand that the record was a tribute to the girls on his block and that he had been watching them for twenty-five years; the children on the record were his own neighbors, already speaking a Philadelphia schoolyard code tied to the rhythm of jump rope. The community is the author; Smith was the recordist. As for -izzle specifically — the suffix form, distinct from Smith infix — the trail runs through Black Oakland and Vallejo, not Philadelphia: E-40 has credited the East Oakland group 3X Krazy with teaching him fa sheezy, which he put on record in 1996, and Snoop first -izzle suffix appears only in December 2000. The honest attribution is a chain of Black communities, none of them Snoop.
1980
Frankie Smith records Double Dutch Bus in Philadelphia with neighborhood children speaking the -iz- code; the record is certified gold in June 1981 and peaks at No. 30 on the Hot 100
1996
E-40 records fo sheezy on Rappers Ball, crediting East Oakland 3X Krazy for teaching it to him — the Bay Area suffix line that precedes Snoop
2000
Snoop Dogg carries his first recorded -izzle suffix in December; within four years the pattern saturates advertising and Snoop publicly asks America to stop
Region of origin
West
Midwest
N.East
South
The Northeast
Philadelphia schoolyards (the -iz- infix, recorded 1980); East Oakland and Vallejo, California (the -eezy and -izzle suffix, mid-1990s); Long Beach and Los Angeles (national popularization, 2000–2004) · 1980s
Spoken by
Originally Black children at play, especially girls turning and jumping rope; then rappers from Brooklyn, Philadelphia, Oakland, Vallejo and Long Beach; then, briefly, all of corporate America
$IZZLEThe Record · cultural traction
▲ Faded46 yrs
ahead of the mainstream
64/100
peak cultural energy
Introduced to English by the culture — logged here before the mainstream caught on.
Cultural usage — the recordMainstream search interest
First used
1980
in the culture
Cultural energy indexed from documented usage, search interest, and citation frequency. The recorded date is the archive’s permanent point of record.
Hear it spoken
By region — how it actually sounds
@bxgriot
The Bronx, NY
@phillyanne
Philadelphia, PA
Contribute your pronunciation
Citations & Sources
■
Kathleen E. Miller, "On Language: Izzle," The New York Times Magazine, 12 September 2004
news · reported
■
Frankie Smith, "Double Dutch Bus," WMOT Records, 1980
song · recorded
■
"Frankie Smith — Double Dutch Bus," Songfacts (carries Smith American Bandstand statement and the gold certification dates)
reference · encyclopedic
■
Joshua Viau, "Introducing English [IZ]-Infixation: Snoop Dogg and bey-[IZ]-ond," Linguistic Society of America meeting, 2006
conference paper
■
+ Cite a sourceMichael Adams, Slang: The People Poetry (Oxford University Press, 2009)
book · printed
See also