April 1, 2006

We were recently provided with a short guide entitled: “Parents Guide to Internet Slang: Understand How Your Kids Communicate Online.” Leetspeak, or “leet” for short (a vernacular form of “elite”), is a specific type of computer slang in which a user replaces regular letters with other keyboard characters to form words phonetically. Leet words can be expressed in hundreds of ways, using different substitutions and combinations.

Key points for interpreting leetspeak include:

• Numbers and symbols often replace the letters they resemble - i.e., the number -’0′ and letter ‘O’.
• Letters can be substituted for other letters that may sound alike - i.e., the letter ‘z’ and letter ’s’.
• Rules of standard english style are rarely obeyed - i.e., ‘very’ could be spelled ‘vry’.
• Non-alphanumeric characters may be combined to form words - i.e., ?/\/\ resembles the letter ‘m’.
• The suffix ‘0rz’ is often appended to workds to make them plural - i.e., ‘hackers’ could be written ‘h4xx0rz’.

Following is a list of commonly used ‘leet’ words and their meanings.

For more information, check out:

• Leetspeak: A parent’s primer to computer slang
• http://www.microsoft.com/athome/security/children/leetspeak.mspx.
• LearnLeetspeak.com:http://www.learnleetspeak.com/ - a Leetspeak to English Translator.

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