Leet

:For information about leats as part of watermills, see Watermill.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Leet, written as "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 phonetically from the word "elite", and is a cipher, or cryptic form of spelling changes such as the substitution of "z" for the "s" at the end of a plural word and "x" for "(c)k" or "(c)ks." Letters may be chosen as substitutes for other letters, based on visual similarity. 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 such games with id software's 1993 first-person shooter Doom, and achieved widespread popularity when Counter-Strike was released in 2000.) 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".

Related Topics:
Internet - Phonetically - Elite - Cipher - Bulletin Board System - Online Multiplayer Games - Id software - 1993 - Doom - Counter-Strike - 2000 - Demoscene - 1980s - Warez - Baud - Modem

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Spelling variation does not always follow a set convention. The same word may be spelled differently by different people, or even by the same person to confuse others furthermore. 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 gamers.

Related Topics:
Internet - Gamers

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Certain factions maintain that "true" Leetspeak is spelled correctly, with the exceptions described above. 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 "noobness" 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).

Related Topics:
AOL speak - ISPs - AOL - Noobness - Studlycaps - Consonant

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~