1337 speak

[Second]

I can tell you that in the Commonwealth of Virgina, you can go online and "Build Your Own" personalized plate. Several variations I tried using numeric substitution and obscenities were rejected. However I did not try "F4HQ", I've seen that before on a different state, don't remember which one.

In the great state of California, you can also build your own online. I just tried it and on the first try was able to get to the payment stage of 5H17H3D. It has a box for the explination of the plate, so if you were able to conjure up a good story, it might just work.

"FUCK" returned the message "Sorry. The plate you have chosen is not available." It also says the number 69 is reserved for cars made in that year. I guess those are the only two restrictions. Pretty cool.

[converge]

Saying that leetspeak is technologically driven wreaks of misnomer. It is was culturally driven by a more geekish piglatin-feel ... and converted into something so whoribly sugar. One could argue that an incorporated encoding of language could imply some higher intelligence, or that by endorsing lower forms of language you are simply using it as a tool to reduce the overall intelligence of a group.. or to sell somethings for a buck.

... or maybe it was just fun turned lame.

[KeLviN]

semi-on-topic:

the type shortening that is used commonly in online enviroments (i.e. brb, afk, lol...) has made some freaky jump to irl...

this week i heard both my younger brother (an avid online chatter) and my roomate (a girl afraid of computers) both say "BRB" when they were leaving...


thats "bee arrr bee".... said aloud! from 2 very different people! any one else witnessed this?

[theCount]

thats "bee arrr bee".... said aloud! from 2 very different people! any one else witnessed this?

Aye, I've heard people say LOL and ROFL out loud before. I have to admit I did a double take on that.

The people I overheard saying that were those commonly known as nedettes here in Glasgow. The etymology I believe is from NED, West of Scotland police-speak from the 50s meaning non-educated delinquents, commonly recognisable from wearing tracksuits, with trouser legs firmly tucked into their socks, and baseball caps with peaks invariably at 45 degree angle. http://www.glasgowsurvival.co.uk/ for more information on neds.

This, in a roundabout way, seems to show that those that use leet-speak, or the extreme, sms-speak in real life, are not particularly advanced at all. On the contrary, they are not well educated at all.

[lil_freak]

any one else witnessed this?

McGruffD, H3adrush, and I all had a pain of a roommate that liked to say "LOL" to everything he thought was funny. I starts to get on your nerves after the four or fifth time.

Hopefully it won't go anymore main stream than it already has.

[Voltage Spike]

McGruffD, H3adrush, and I all had a pain of a roommate that liked to say "LOL" to everything he thought was funny. I starts to get on your nerves after the four or fifth time.

(As an aside, I have friends that answer most questions with the pre-canned phrases from Counter-Strike. Not really annoying, but it is a little disturbing.)

I think converge's take is pretty accurate: the old-timers saw common typos, started repeating them to be funny, were topped by even more ridiculous variations, and then the fun should have been over. Only it wasn't.

I think part of what makes it annoying to people is that only the newbies to the scene find it entertaining. The joke is really just a one-trick pony, but there are a lot of ponies out there (okay, bad metaphor).

"Woot", of course, is in a class all its own (partly because it is simply a fun sound and not necessarily a word).

[bascule]

Everyone who uses a particular language contributes to its evolution. Sadly, many of these people are morons.

[TheCotMan]

"Woot", of course, is in a class all its own (partly because it is simply a fun sound and not necessarily a word).

I see, "Woot!" as an emphatic and idiomatic statement. It's sort of like Homer Simpson's, "WooHoo!" or "Doh!" In these cases, I think it is a matter of a choice of idiomatic delivery to convey a sense of feeling.

A big difference? Woot! is often exclaimed, but people who say "Elll Ohhh Elll" (lol) are describing something that they are not doing. Are they really laughing out loud? No? Then they are liars.

There are exceptions that are used on USENET, email, and notes:
AFAIK, ATM, COTS, FAQ, FOAD, FUBAR, FUD, FWIW, FYI, HTH, IANAL, KISS, TIA, WRT, IIRC, IMHO

Would these be considered leetspeak? I'm not sure. If they are not, is LOL? If LOL is, but the above are not, then the question becomes, why not? What rules (beyond experience) separate them?

?

[Voltage Spike]

I see, "Woot!" as an emphatic and idiomatic statement. It's sort of like Homer Simpson's, "WooHoo!" or "Doh!"

Sure, you can say that now, but it wasn't always that way.

Urban Dictionary has some interesting statements about the origins of woot.

A big difference? Woot! is often exclaimed, but people who say "Elll Ohhh Elll" (lol) are describing something that they are not doing. Are they really laughing out loud? No? Then they are liars.

Woot as a shortening of "Wow, loot!" fits the same description, though. Woot as an acronym ("We Owned the Other Team") also fits this description.

To be fair, Wikipedia records the origins of woot as rappers "describing their pleasure at sighting the posterior of a voluptuous woman".

There are exceptions that are used on USENET, email, and notes:
AFAIK, ATM, COTS, FAQ, FOAD, FUBAR, FUD, FWIW, FYI, HTH, IANAL, KISS, TIA, WRT, IIRC, IMHO

Would these be considered leetspeak?

We sort of got off-topic there, but acronyms are certainly not a variation of 31337-speak. Although they are often a component, this is true of most written speech (especially since the 90s).

What rules (beyond experience) separate the them?

I'm going to make an attempt at answering this question even though At The Drive-In is really screwing with my thought processes right now.

Acronyms are commonly used to shorten common phrases into easily-identified snippets that are easier to type. Leetspeak, on the other hand, is meant to take easily-identified snippets and transform them into alternate, often varying, forms in an attempt to obfuscate the meaning.

Note that by this definition LOL isn't a true acronym since users created it to convey emotion rather than an expression.

PS: While looking up woot, I decided to check on leet. Very interesting stuff, and certainly relevant to the topic at hand (including the section differentiating leet- and AOL-speak).

[allentrace]

In the great state of California, you can also build your own online. I just tried it and on the first try was able to get to the payment stage of 5H17H3D. It has a box for the explination of the plate, so if you were able to conjure up a good story, it might just work.

"FUCK" returned the message "Sorry. The plate you have chosen is not available." It also says the number 69 is reserved for cars made in that year. I guess those are the only two restrictions. Pretty cool.

In Ky while driving one night the guy in front of me had a license plate that read Boise Tu which means Fuck You in French So I would assume if the licensing guy does not understand a foreign language you are good to go.

[alklloyd]

There are exceptions that are used on USENET, email, and notes:
AFAIK, ATM, COTS, FAQ, FOAD, FUBAR, FUD, FWIW, FYI, HTH, IANAL, KISS, TIA, WRT, IIRC, IMHO

Cot, I can't believe you forgot one of the most common (when dealing with google groups morons, usually): RTFM.

Al

[Voltage Spike]

Cot, I can't believe you forgot one of the most common (when dealing with google groups morons, usually): RTFM.

RTFM is certainly more common than the included FOAD, although they are often used in the same manner.

[TheCotMan]

Sure, you can say that now, but it wasn't always that way.
[Good background word origin cut]
I'm going to make an attempt at answering this question even though At The Drive-In is really screwing with my thought processes right now.

I was really asking on an opinion level, and you really summarized it at the start and middle of your response. (Though the links you provide offer great background. :-)

There are words that are often associated with leet-speak, but may not be considered as part of it. Also, there may be a case in the future where other acronyms are widely accepted in the mainstream.

Cot, I can't believe you forgot one of the most common (when dealing with google groups morons, usually): RTFM.

Yes. There were a few others I could have included too. ]:>
Debian ships with a package that includes "wtf" which is a command that will expand known acronyms. It is really simple though. It looks like it reads two flatfiles and applies a search for lines that match, and then returns the matched lines (like grep -i "^acronym")

I could have pasted in the two flat-files, but figued a sample set would be enough.

rtfm would have been a great one to include. I remember using rtfm.mit.edu for USENET newsgroup FAQs, but that sites default page is a link redirection now.

[Floydr47]

After doing extensive and exhaustive research into the meaning of RTFM I arrived at the meaning (actually I Googled it and just took a shot in the dark). Here is the result that I found:
http://www.geocities.com/boxing4d/Q209354.htm

Seriously, thanks for the input, from what I have read in your posts I now have a better understanding of what "leet speak" is.