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Best. Comment. Evar
"Leetspeak is however, extremely common in "gamr" groups in high schools. It is used for emphasis and is often considered "hot," or cool. It has simply become the gangsta-style black slang-to-the-izzo of the white/Asian-dominated gamr communiteh."
So much humour packed into that. Not very encyclopedic (my wiki gland was commanding me to edit it at first), but it's got to stay, surely? Sockatume, Talk 03:39, 8 Jan 2005 (UTC)
Funny, i always thought leet ,,..,, for lit, like a person who has achieved (technical) enlightnment. Though surely someone like that could be considered as being from an elite. :)
Might want to included students/schools (or parents) along with employees/companies - a lot of leet are kids, after all, and they more often have to contend with censorware.
Also, what about the multitude of abbreviations, from "a/s/l?" to the old standbys, LOL, ROTFL, BTW, etc... -- April
I wouldn't class LOL, BTW, etc as part of leet, they're standard net abbreviations, along with emoticons. AOL has helpfiles explaining them. I might put a list of the standard ways to represent letters. I saw somewhere there's a Windows keyboard definition file that does leet. /\/\3 15 7h3 1337! ;-) -- Tarquin
j00 5|_|x><0|25, 7|2|_||_'/ |_||\||_337. \/\/3r|} there j00 go l33tness at its most l33t.
- You suckers, truly unleet. Werd(,) there you go(,) leetness at its most leet.
this being an encyclopedia, please give a translation of the above before it goes back in the article! -- Tarquin 19:04 Oct 16, 2002 (UTC)
This article has been cited by Cecil Adams of The Straight Dope! w00t! - Montréalais
- Cool! sorry. I mean |<3\/\/1!! -- Tarquin 17:14 Jan 10, 2003 (UTC) ( 74®qu1|\| )
I would say r for are or possibly our, u for you, and 2 for to and too belong to "AOL speak" and general Internet chat shorthand, not the more often than not wannabee l33tsp34k.
Is the exclamation point really part of the name? If so, the article title should be changed accordingly. -- Zoe
- No, it's not -- Tarquin 13:29 Mar 3, 2003 (UTC) ( 74rqu1|\| )
The article suggest the term leet originated in 1980s but I can't seem to find any evidence of pre-1990 usage, does anyone know of any ?
Journey's album "Escape"' cover is written E5C4P3 , does that help? Rhymeless 22:59, 9 Aug 2004 (UTC)
- No, It doesn't I would not consider that as an example.
- BTW, I change your comment SYSS Mouse 20:49, 17 Aug 2004 (UTC)
1 r 1337
- 3'/3 4r3 73h l337 /\/|/\/j4
all your bases are belong to us...
- 4LL j00r B4§3$ r B3L0/\/g +\/\/0 |_|§. . .
l337 15 5uk1n9 b4115,
- "root" for adminstrator privileges (from the Unix administrator account)
That's not l33t at all. Taw 18:49 Apr 25, 2003 (UTC)
- but to access someone elses root privaledges w/o their permission is very l337. w0()t
All i got to say is your all nerds.-UnknownDefiler
- 4LL 3'/3 G()t 7\/\/0 §4y |$t, j00 4r3 73|-| G4'/.
I had always thought the term "woot" came from a game where when you got an invincibility powerup, the game made a sound that sounded kinda like "woot!". So when people got it, they'd say the word "Woot" on chat, as a way of telling people about it. That just evolved into the general "woohoo" meaning that it has now. None of this is verified, and n00b that I am, I don't even know what game it was. If anybody can back me up on this, might as well throw it in. Etaoin 02:30, 10 Nov 2003 (UTC)
Yes, it's Quake, but that's only a theory. There are also theories of origination of woot from Latin and Daffy duck; for more information, look at our very own Wikipedia entry woot.
Znode Productions 09:27, 2004 Jan 1 (UTC)
There's some pretty specious claims on this entry. The whole "it conserves bandwidth!" argument is right next to a mangling of frequently asked questions that takes rather more space and relies on extended ascii that in the dark ages didn't transfer well between platforms or even clients.
Practically, there are very few if any people who ever actually TALKED like that. It would be used for names on some game servers, used for spam sometimes, but never for actual talking. The practical dialects of leet tended to be the pwn, ownz0red, teh, 1337, etc. numbers get used a lot, but mangling of words with |< and /-\ and stuff didn't happen much in my experience. It wasn't ever a hierarchy thing, the upper classes of the game servers I was on looked down on people who did that sort of thing. Formal leet has always been a sort of joke, while casual leet of the 0wnz class gets used mostly because it sounds sort of cool. Written speech loses a lot of its flavor when it's seperated from speech and body language, so people need new ways to spruce things up. That's why this happens.
In my admittedly small experience, it seems that writing "one" after a string of !!!!!111 started as a joke, making fun of people who use such excessive punctuation seriously. I don't know enough on the topic to edit the article, but it's worth mentioning. It could also account for why the "one"s are not rendered in leet themselves.
- It more likely comes from 'lamers' releasing the shift key before the 1/! key because they forgot to take their ritalin.
I always thought that "Woot!" was a creative mispelling of "What!", as an expression of surprise. It seems more likely to me than a derivation of "Whew" (an expression of relief), but I don't know the history.
--62.64.202.114 04:25, 8 Mar 2004 (UTC)
"b4k4^2 or |34|<4^2 for "baka Ni." Ni is the Japanese word for "two", so it is meant to be read as "Baka raised to the second power" or "baka squared" (meaning quite stupid) (see Baka-Ni t-shirt). Note that this is not gramatical Japanese and is not Japanese slang. This term probably originated entirely at megatokyo."
- IMO the phrase j00 4r3 l00k|ng ph0r |§t Baka-Ne or you idiot. B4k4^2 is just an online phrase used to insult people
- This is incorrect. The term "baka^2" is derived from the anime character Ruri from Nadesico, who often says "baka baaka." This can be interpreted as "baka baka" (saying "baka" twice), or the contraction of "baka bakkari" ([surrounded by] only [idiots]). While no doubt MegaTokyo brought the usage (relatively) mainstream, it's quite clear that it didn't originate there. Other Nadesico influences on MT includes the occational "Naze Nani MegaTokyo" panels, which mimics "Naze Nani Nadesico" from one of the episodes.
- Aha! Thanks for the enlightenment. I should have known, lots of things in megatokyo are spoofs on diverse animes. Kim Bruning 17:33, 22 Mar 2004 (UTC)
l33t
Though this article was very well written, one of the largest mistakes that I found was the meaning of the word "l33t"
the word "l33t" does not mean "leet"
it actually means "Elite"
as in the "l" produces a sound of "El" and "33t" produces "eet" or "ite"
so insted of Eleet, you end up with "Elite"
Sincerely,
Alan
Annoyance value
Don't suppose a bit could be added to this article to say that l33t annoys many people?
(Seriously-- I've seen high school teachers blow their tops when presented with a paper that has l33t in it.)
Shouldn't English teachers blow their tops when they see Leet?
I'd like to know if anybody still uses 'leet' for anything other than comedic value?
- 3'/3 sp34|{ l337 0/\/ 4 d41L'/ B4§|$, 3\/3N \/\/|-|3n T4L| newb -> noob -> n00b. Not that difficult to swallow. The backronym should be removed unless defended. --Air 17:48, 10 Nov 2004 (UTC)
- DoneMcKay
Cleanup/Featured
Maybe I'm being a bit presumptuous, but it looks like a whole bunch of script kiddies came through here and edited to their hearts content. I've tried to clean up a little bit, but the article needs a lot of work. I feel really bad deleting entire sections of new content, but I almost did it today. this article was probably a lot better off before it got featured because now everyone has (anonymously for the most part) added their little two bits. I added the cleanup tag too. LMK what you think. McKay 21:38, 5 Nov 2004 (UTC)
- Adding a photoshopped picture, 1 Isn't necessary, and 2. Doesn't mean this article doesn't need cleanup.
- clean-up yes, deltion. maybe not. evne if some1 tosses in their two bit, it may thier two bits that make the buck.
n00b . again
Noob != Nobody. Unless the usage has really changed, which is concievable, but I think is HIGHLY unlikely. Proof? Until I get such, I'm going to say that this is someone trying to introduce a new concept, not show an existing concept (reminder -- Wikipedia is not a place for original research)
Cleanup: Words
The Example Words section contains rambling definitions of Internet Slang, for which we already have an article. We are only illustrating leet usage, not discussing the etymology of woot (Want One Of Those?? urgh).--Air 17:01, 17 Nov 2004 (UTC)
- You're right. This article needs a lot of cleanup. Stuff like this. Feel free to take a stab at it. If there's already an entry in Wikipedia, merge the content and keep the link. If something doesn't have an article, make a decision. Be Bold McKay
Test
origin of !!!!111!!111
Doesn't The Gonif deserve recognition for being the 'inventor' of what has become an all too commonly overused practise? The fact that we actually know who invented it should be include. I'm putting it back in until we decide otherwise. HawkeVIPER 01:42, 6 Dec 2004 (UTC)
- Hmm...the problem with the anecdote is that it is a) completely unverifiable and b) I guess nobody outside of a very small circle of friends will knwo who "The Gonif" is and what the "Adventurer's tavern" is/was. As ist stands, it's just a story about some random BBS user 20 years ago who allegedly typed something, but we don't know his real name, and there is absolutely no way of verifying that any of this is true. So I say we're better off without the anecdote - I won't remove it for the moment as I'd like to hear others' opinions, but in my opinion, it borders on nonsense. -- Ferkelparade π 07:28, 6 Dec 2004 (UTC)
- i say you leave the anecdote in, but label it as such, w/ the addendum that, if anyone can prove a verifyable earlier account, then the title ist theirs.
- The BBS might have been keeping some kind of log perhaps? We'd have to contact the sysop for the BBS. HawkeVIPER, I take it you know more about this, or would you be willing to track it down? Kim Bruning 12:18, 6 Dec 2004 (UTC)
- http://www.bbsmates.com/ doesn't seem to be helping much here, maybe you'll have more luck (or more luck elsewhere?) Kim Bruning 12:21, 6 Dec 2004 (UTC)
- Addendum: even if it can be broven that a user called "The Gonif" typed "!!11!!11" sometime in 1986, there is still no proof whatsoever that nobody before him typed the same thing, and we still don't know anything about Gonif except his 1980s BBS handle. Wouldn't it be sufficient to say that overexclamation dates back to the 1980s BBS era? -- Ferkelparade π 12:27, 6 Dec 2004 (UTC)
- Apparently the Gonif's real name was Jeff. -Sean Curtin 00:57, Dec 7, 2004 (UTC)
j00 r teh n00blerz
[WIP] l33t and uber-l33t
I was impressed that someone has already begun the work on describing l33t, but there are some serious problems, not only with the examples given, but with some of the linguistic terms that have been used. For instance, 'leet' is not a phonetic version of elite (this would be eleet), it is rather an abbreviated form of the phonetic version, however the term "phonetic version" also lacks specification.
I am currently working on a more in-depth description of the term and its associated language use. <crispy.pie>
t3h cr1spmast4h pwnz j00 n00bz!!!1 TEH NEW L33T PAGE WILL B TEH SECHHHS!!!!11ONEHUNDREDANDELEVEN
Pronounciation of '0' in 'x0r' as 'Œ'
I've noticed that hax0r can be pronounced both hacker and hacksor. I'm just wondering if the 'e' and 'o' sounds can be interpolated to prononce hax0r with an '[[%8C|Œ]]' sound (in the German language, 'Œ' is written '[[%D6|Ö]]', and in some Scandinavian languages, 'Œ' is written '[[%D8|Ø]]') so that it is pronounced 'hackœr'.
In old in old-style ASCII graphic character sets, '0' is displayed with a slash through it (this is known as a slashed zero). This slashed zero looks the same as the 'Ø' in some Scandinavian languages which is pronounced 'Œ'. So I'm wondering whether this is coincidental, or if whoever invented 'x0r' was aware that it would look like 'hackør'.
I've not been able to find anything to back up my claim, and it is just a theory, but I have heard someone (who can be considered a hax0r) pronounce 'hax0r' as 'hackœr' (although they did speak in a Northern English accent).