Ah, the glorious language of leetspeak. This holy language for number worshipers have finally made its way to the internet in the about three decades ago. What geniuses must these leetspeakers be when they was able to figure out a resemblance between the number and the English alphabets. But of course, not every aphabet can be replaced by the language of leetspeak, but that's ok, no language is perfect! What if about only 10 alphabets can be replaced by numbers? That certainly didn't stop the leetspeakers from using it.
Don't be fooled by the simplicity of the language! It's more than just replacing the alphabets by it's correspond resembled number. Leetspeak comes with word variety! For example: the word his can be translated into h15 or h1$ in leetspeak. For more advanced leetspeak users, the use of symbols are also included! So don't be confused when you see nothing inside a parenthesis. That simply means the alphabet O or the number 0.
So where does Leetspeak originate from? Well, Leet come from an internet BBS (Bulletin Board System) where "elite", an alternate meaning for leet, is a sought after status that allow a user to have access to files, games, and special chat room. That BBS housed many hackers who was rumored to intentionally use leetspeak to conceal their discussions from search engine and non-hackers. This eventually dies down. Leetspeak now serve the purpose of teasing other internet user's poor spelling.
If you too want to be epic and use leetspeak in your comments, I got just the right tool for you! Introducing the leetspeak converter!
http://www.computerhope.com/jargon/l/leetspea.htm
N0w u c4n b3 pr0 l1k3 7h053 h4x0r5!
Similar to my previous entry (regarding the point that Barlow made in his novel), it's truly amazing what a toll the internet have on language. I just hope the young minds out there don't submit a school paper with school spelled as 5ch00l.
No comments:
Post a Comment