Leet |
Leet, written as |33t or 1337 in Leetspeak, is an online culture and/or attitude, as well as a language code, among the Internet population. The word itself is derived phonetics from the word elite , and is a cipher, or cryptic form of spelling replacing letters with numbers, symbols, and other letters that look or sound alike. Leetspeak was probably first used by hackers on Bulletin Board Systems, and then later adopted by users of Online Multiplayer Games and other Internet communities. (Leet first appeared In the demoscene of the 1980s, the word elite would at one point apply to people belonging to large Warez groups who had access to a (then rare) 28.800 baud Modem and would be allowed to use elite BBS:es .
Spelling variation does not always follow a set convention. The same word may be spelt differently by different people, or even by the same person to confuse others even more. This is symptomatic of the desire or affected desire to elude comprehension by others unfamiliar with the foreign art form.
Many consider it a pointless affectation, and as it has become widely used it is less useful as a way of showing membership of an elite group. It is nonetheless a cultural phenomenon well-known amongst hackers and many other Internet users, especially online games.
Certain factions maintain that true Leetspeak is spelt correctly, with the exceptions described below. They do not consider the use of extreme short forms (such as b for be , or u for you ) as Leetspeak; instead, they refer to it by such terms as AOL speak . This is because they associate such habits with users who use ISPs like AOL, which is associated with n00b and therefore not considered elite. The chief difference between Leetspeak and AOL speak is that Leetspeak has the goal of obfuscating traditional written language while in AOL speak the goal is primarily to shorten words (and therefore allow n00bs to be able to communicate more quickly). Another convention sometimes associated with Leetspeak or Internet chatting is capitalizing every other letter (LiKe ThIs), sometimes called studlycaps or stickycaps . A similar habit involves capitalizing every consonant (LiKe THiS).
=Overview=
The term Leet is derived from the word elite . Leet can be either pronounced as Leet (monosyllabic - rhymes with meat, International Phonetic Alphabet ) or by pronouncing the L separate from the rest of the word ( el eat (elite) , IPA ). Leetspeak is a form of written slang or street talk for the information highway. It is sometimes used to create group identity and to obscure meaning from outsiders, especially Newbies (referred to as n00bs ). It also establishes a hierarchy, as more complex forms of Leetspeak are increasingly unreadable to the untrained eye. Consider the phrase PHr3Ku3N7ly H4s|{3d K0o£St330nZ! It translates to frequently asked questions . Note the extraneous h in front of asked and the construction -teeonz as meaning -tions . Simple forms of Leetspeak have become rather mainstream, as employees use the alternative spellings to circumvent their companies mail filters designed to censor coarse language and other objectionable content. Leetspeak can also be used to disguise text within the object code of a program because it looks very much like binary data when viewed in a text editor.
One probable explanation of its origin is from bulletin board systems (BBSs) in the 1980s and early 1990s. It started with people trying to talk about illegal or otherwise questionable activities, such as software piracy, that some BBS operators did not want to be discussed or carried out via their systems. The operators would filter out certain words or ban people who used them. Most notably the word hacker was a common banned word.
Rather than stop talking about these topics, some BBS users would simply use variations on the words, for example hacker could be replaced by hack0r or h4cker . These variants could be banned too, to which the response was to change the word more and more until it was barely recognizable ( h4x0r , |-|4>, |: H #, /-/, [-], {=}, , |-|, ]~[, }{, ]-[, , }-{
N //, ^/, ||, //, [], , , {}, [][], n, /V,
T 7, +, -|-, 1, ][
Z 2, z, ~\_, ~/_
C [, ¢, , |>,
J ,|, _|, ; P ph, |^, |*, |o, |^(o), |>, | , 9, []D, |, |7
V /
E 3, &, £, ë, , ê, |=- K X, | , => , => , => / . Kusachu could be seen as a selective mixture of bohramt.
There are many dialects of these, and distinctions are not always easy to draw. The character-splitting style is closest to leet in the sense that it is hard to read for the uninitiated and generally despised of by those who don t use it. The 2ch style is closer to non-leet forms of netspeak, but it does have a comparatively large vocabulary.
Examples of Kusachu:
==Cyrillation in Cyrillic languages==
For IRC and other programs as well as when a suitable character/font set is lacking, some users that use the cyrillic alphabet (such as in the Russian, Serbian and Bulgarian languages) instead use phonetic versions of normal cyrilic words. They use letters that are similar in both alphabets, and where they need to use a character that isn t present in latin they use an ASCII character that in some way represents the original. This practice is widely popular as it saves time and also gives the text a rather cryptic look, but is sometimes prohibited in BBS and other services because some administrators believe it denigrates the traditional cyrilic alphabet or is harder to read and too informal in most cases. Here is a brief guide to converting a word from cyrilic to latin:
Similar/shared letters: A, E, M, K, O, T;
Letters converted by pronunciation: S; B; N; BV; H; L; F; D; Z; U,W; I; G;
Other converted letters: (silenter)X; Q; (sz)J,V; (somewhat U)Y;
Other Symbols: (ch)4; (sh)6,[; ]; (iu),Z,U sometimes;
Pictograms: }|{ - ; |-| - H; |-0 - , |/| - , |/| - .
Note: The usual cyrilation styles are loosely based upon the phonetic and BDS cyrillic keyboard layouts. It is also notable that some characters share their appearance but have different pronunciations in Latin and Cyrillic - for example B in Cyrillic is equal to V in Latin. Alternations of this style are also present in other non-latin alphabets. Pictograms are used for ironic or humorous purposes.
==Greeklish in Greek==
Another form of transliteration used for the same reasons as Cyrillization is Greeklish, a way of writing Greek language using only Latin characters, punctuation and numerals. Like Cyrillization, Greeklish is often difficult to read even for native speakers and is frequently discriminated against.
=Leet slang=
==Words==
For full definitions please see Internet slang.
== Use of x0r ==
Note that the construction -xor or any variation thereof can be pronounced variously as -ker , -zor , or -ksor (the latter two being the way the majority of English speakers would pronounce it).
In the phrase r0x0rz my b0x0rz (a phrase expressing approval, especially of something computer-related) for example, the x0rz in b0x0rz and r0x0rz is often pronounced as ksors . Originally in this phrase b0x0rz refers not to boxer shorts (i. e. undergarment) but actually to boxes (in computer slang, More boxen). The more naïve interpretation rocks your boxers is still meaningful, however, as the sentiment is much the same.
The term r0x0r j00r b0x0r itself probably relates to hacking itself, with a person being able to gain access to and, from there, rock their box . It is also possible that it is a derivation from r0x0r j00r s0x0r , rocks your socks . (The phrase rocks your socks could be derived from the saying, It ll knock your socks off. ) It should be noted that although the spelling of leet is fairly standardized, pronunciation differs widely, as does the actual alphabet used. Much depends on which forum, newsgroup, or chat room the Leetspeak is being spoken in.
An increasingly common use of the -xor is changing its grammatical usage to be deliberately incorrect. Instead of using Bob r0x0r , Bob am teh r0x0r or Bob are teh r0x0r is deliberately used to increase the level of irony and to separate it from less ironic, true leetspeak. -xor is also used in user nicknames, Usually by 1337 users or wannabe 1337 users. (e.g: Luxxor )
==Grammar==
Leet, like other Jargon File, enjoys a loose grammar. Because the deliberate misusage of grammar, just like spelling, encodes some of the level of emphasis, ironic or otherwise, a reader must rely more on intuitive parsing of the leet-speak to determine the meaning of a sentence than the actual sentence structure. In particular, leet-speakers are fond of verbing nouns, turning verbs into nouns as forms of emphasis (e.g. Bob rocks is weaker than Bob r0xx0rz (spelling) is weaker than Bob is teh r0xx0r (grammar)). Leet, like in other hacker slang, employs overgeneralization in construction of new words. For example, if h4xx0r3d is the past tense of the verb to hack (hack->haxxor->haxxored), then bl0wz0r3d would be easily understood to be the past tense conjugation of to blow , even if the reader had not seen that particular word before. (e.g: I got the quad damage and bl0wz0r3d him up ).
==Use of $ ==
This is the subject of some controversy among Leet-speakers. While $ is considered an acceptable substitute for S in any context by casual users of the language, among the more geek it is considered proper usage only when used in an ironic or insulting context with a connotation towards negative aspects of money (e.g. greed, monopoly, big business). i.e. M$ (MS, short for Microsoft) is proper usage, but r0xx0r$ is more properly spelt r0xx0r5 .
==Phonetic spellings==
There are many incarnations of leet, and it is continuously evolving as more people add to it, and thus, a single word can be spelt in many different ways. For example, phonetic could be |>|-|0n371>yuo). Other common misspellings now standard in leet are:
As with most alternate leet spellings or grammar, inclusion in a sentence is done on purpose, in order to lighten the mood, strengthen a point, or convey a sense of irony, depending on the context.
==Phrases==
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