OotS #619 up ...

[Herschel]

For example: |=0|2 3x4[v]|>13

What the heck is that?!?!?!!

 

[Infiniti2000]

No! Leet speak is not the same as people who can't (or won't) type correctly (and I refuse to grant that phenomenon any legitimacy by giving it a cutesy name).

Besides it being hilarious that someone's actually trying to defend Leetspeak, I find it even more humorous that you'll need to go edit Wikipedia to prove yourself right (it doesn't actually mention thx, but I can't believe that your defense wouldn't include, say, teh).

 

[Asmor]

Man, I still miss Kelethin. It took me forever, but I actually knew how to navigate that treehouse labyrinth...

Remember giving people permission to loot your corpse, or to drag your corpse back?

 

[orsal]

Besides it being hilarious that someone's actually trying to defend Leetspeak, I find it even more humorous that you'll need to go edit Wikipedia to prove yourself right (it doesn't actually mention thx, but I can't believe that your defense wouldn't include, say, teh).

Evidently usage varies. When 1337 was first explained to me, I was told that serious users of the lingo would not countenance any roman letters -- just numerals, punctuation marks and other symbols such as |. So, my understanding was similar to Asmor's. Now I see there is also a broader use of the term to refer to any internet-based shibboleth.

Also, in response to Herschel (and anyone else experiencing similar confusion): Consider the following letter-by-letter translation

Leet:    |=  0  |2  3  x  4  [v]  |>  1  3
English: f   o  r   e  x  a   m   p   l  e

You get the idea?

(Asmor evidently uses a somewhat more relaxed form of 1337 than my source, who would prefer to render the `x' as ><.)

 

[Orius]

That was what had me cracking up. That, and Haley's last line.

The MMO references were fun, but there was a lot of good lines in this. Like Belkar's, "Where the hell is my sandwich, anyway?" His line about getting a buff made me laugh too.

 

[MarkB]

Evidently usage varies. When 1337 was first explained to me, I was told that serious users of the lingo would not countenance any roman letters -- just numerals, punctuation marks and other symbols such as |. So, my understanding was similar to Asmor's. Now I see there is also a broader use of the term to refer to any internet-based shibboleth.

The difference, as I understand it, is that shorthand contractions such as "kthx" are used mainly as a means of compacting text, either so that they can be delivered in fewer characters (useful with a means of communication with a hard limit on message length, such as SMS text messages), or so that they can be typed more quickly (useful in an online multiplayer game, where you need to finish typing your message and get back to the combat as quickly as possible).

Full-on 1337-speak, on the other hand, was originally used specifically to obfuscate written language, originating on usenet groups and bulletin boards as a means of defeating text-trawling keyword search programs when discussing illegal activities.