The word comes from skazátʹ, "to tell", and is also related to such words as rasskaz, "short story" and skazka, "fairy tale".[1] The speech makes use of dialect and slang in order to take on the persona of a particular character.[2] The peculiar speech, however, is integrated into the surrounding narrative, and not presented in quotation marks.[3] This is not only a literary device, but is also used as an element in Russian monologue comedy.[4]