Leet

For other uses, see Leet (disambiguation).

Leet l33t, 1337
Script type	Alternative (a basic cipher with unique elements of Internet slang)
Time period	1980 to the present
Direction	Left-to-right
Languages	English, with some use in other languages
Related scripts
Parent systems	Roman Alphabet Arabic Numerals Cyrillic Alphabet with influences from modern typography and punctuation Leet l33t, 1337

L33t or L33tspeak (often written in Leet as L337 or L337 5p34k) is a writing system used primarily on the Internet, particularly on IRC but nowadays also in most online video games. The term itself is a leet-form of the word elite, and generally has the same meaning when referring to the hacking or the gaming skills of another person.

Leet began as a form of text obfuscation to dodge filters on Usenet.

Leet involves the modification of written text, both by substitution of some letters, numbers, and other characters for the usual ones, and by use of characteristic variations in grammar, spelling and idiom. These perturbations are chosen, and interpreted, through visual resemblances, abstract connections (usually involving knowledge about computers), or known conventions. Leet spelling are generally not fixed, and users often take pride in developing new ones whose interpretation requires cleverness or appropriate background knowledge.

Leet has its own colloquialisms, many of which originated as jokes based on common typing errors, habits of new computer-users, or knowledge of internet culture and history. One such colloqiallism is "Pie," which can be a substitute for any word or simply said in IRCs for randomness.

Leet is not solely based upon one language or character set. Greek, Russian, Chinese, and other languages have Leet forms, and leet in one language may use characters from another where they are available. As such, while it may be referred to as a "cipher," a "dialect," or a "language," Leet does not fit squarely into any of these categories. This article primarily concerns the English language variant of Leet.

For example, the term leet itself is often written l33t, or 1337, and many other variations. After the meaning of these became widely familiar, 10100111001 came to be used in its place, because it is the binary representation of the decimal number 1337, making it more of a puzzle to interpret.

Letter substitutions

A major part of most variations of leet is the substitution of non-letter symbols for letters in a word. The symbol chosen is flexible—anything that the reader can make sense of is valid leet. The practice of adding excess numbers and symbols to a leet word is frowned upon by many users of leet, and it's frequently used sarcastically to mock a newbie leet-speaker.

Word endings

Use of xor and zor

The suffix -xor (also -zor, or other variations thereof) can be used like the standard English -er and -or, in order to derive an agent noun from a verb. Examples includes pwnzor and haxor, meaning one who pwns or hacks, respectively.

The agent nouns containing these suffixes can then be turned into a verb, usually be the addition of -ed or -'d, making the phrase 'you have been pwnzored' equivalent to 'you have been pwned,' only more so. It can also be suffixed to the stem of any verb, with no apparent change in meaning. The resulting verbs can be conjugated as regular English verbs. This demonstrates the extreme flexibility of the language.

Due to the phonetic sound of xor ([z], as in xylophone), Leet speakers have begun using zor and zorz as well and in similar context.

Using ri in combination with xor brings about long suffixes for higher levels of irony (e.g., "I am the suxorixorage"). The suffix -izzle may also be added to words in the same way as xor, such as in owndizzle. This practice entered the popular culture based on rapper Snoop Dogg's use of the slang.

Some insist that xor was created as a divination from other abbreviations, e.g. X meaning cross and O + R with an implied V between them, altogether meaning crossover, a clever synonym for anything translated into leet.

In the phrase "rock your b0x0rz," b0x0rz refers to boxers (i.e. underwear) but might refer to boxes (in computer slang, computers, though boxen or b0x3n may be more commonly used in this context). The more naïve interpretation "rocks your boxers" is still meaningful, however, as the sentiment is much the same and is often used to carry a connotation that one was "rocked" so hard they felt it in their boxer shorts. This is also similar to the phrase "to scare one's pants off," or imply figurative domination through sexual innuendo.

Use of the -age suffix

A verb may be changed to a noun simply by adding -age, or an adjective to a noun with -ness. For example, speak becomes speakage, or Leet becomes Leetness, as in "I know Leetness speakage," meaning, "I know Leetspeak." The addition of this suffix to the lexicon of popular culture is attributed to Pauly Shore.

The -age suffix has also been attributed to the punk/hardcore band Descendents, and sometimes with the band ALL. The lead singer of the former, Milo Aukerman, possesses a Ph.D. in biochemistry, and comically associates the band and himself with nerds and geeks. Members of the band have been involved with computers and software since the early 1980s. The Descendents commonly add the suffix -age to song and album titles such as "Myage," "Cameage," "Bikage," "Liveage," "Tonyage," "Marriage," "Cleavage", and even "Coolidge." Most of these songs can be found on their 1981 release Milo Goes to College (also ending with the -age sound). A Descendents tribute album was appropriately named Homage, which recognized the band's most common word morphology. Stockage was a punk music festival highlighted by performances from Descendents and ALL.

Due to the fluid nature of Leet, such derived nouns can be further re-purposed as verbs, such as "Pure Pwnage" (i.e., Utterly owned).

Words ending in -ed

When forming a past participle ending in -ed, the Leet user may replace the -e with an apostrophe, as was common in poetry of previous centuries, (e.g. "pwned" becomes "pwn'd"). Contrary to poetic use, however, the apostrophe is often used to emphasize the pronounciation of the vowel. Note that the conventions of Leet allow for some misplaced punctuation, since it is assumed that the user is typing very quickly; therefore the apostrophe may shift its position without changing the word's meaning. It is fairly common for the e simply to be dropped. The word ending may also be substituted by -t (e.g. owned becomes ownt).

Grammar

Leet, like other hacker slang, enjoys a looser grammar than standard English. The loose grammar, just like loose spelling, encodes some level of emphasis, ironic or otherwise. A reader must rely more on intuitive parsing of Leet to determine the meaning of a sentence rather than the actual sentence structure. In particular, speakers of Leet are fond of verbing nouns, turning verbs into nouns (and back again) as forms of emphasis, e.g. "Bob rocks" is weaker than "Bob r0xx0rz" (note spelling), which is weaker than "Bob is t3h r0xx0rz" (note grammar), which is even weaker than "OMFG D00d Bob is t3h UB4R 1337 R0XX0RZ LOL". This is not true. It is in the users preference in using any1 of these examples. No 1 phrase is stronger than the other. In essence, all of these mean "Bob rocks," not necessarily the other options. Added words and misspellings add to the speaker's enjoyment. Leet, like in other hacker slang, employs overgeneralization in construction of new words. For example, if haxored is the past tense of the verb "to hack" (hack → haxor → haxored), then winzored would be easily understood to be the past tense conjugation of "to win," even if the reader had not seen that particular word before.

An increasingly common characteristic of Leet is changing its grammatical usage to be deliberately incorrect. For instance, instead of saying "Bob r0x0r" ("Bob rocks"), one might write, "Bob am teh r0x0r" ("Bob is the one who rocks"), or "Bob r teh r0x0rz" ("Bob are the rocks"), both of which incorrectly use the verb "to be," and render the verb "to rock" as a noun. It is deliberately used to increase the level of irony of the statement. This deliberate misspelling is similar to the cult following of the "All your base are belong to us" phrase. Indeed, the online and computer communities have been international from their inception, so that spellings and phrases typical of non-native speakers are quite common.

Rhyming and rhythm

While Leet is not generally spoken, it can be deemed close to stress-timed. Care is taken by users of Leet to combine similarly timed words, or to encipher words into ways such that they have a common rhythm or rhyme. An example of this is the phrase "roffle my woffles" (note both spelling error (woffle) and word timing) ("roffle" is derived from the phonetic pronunciation of the acronym ROFL). Other examples would be "roxorz your boxorz" (in this case, rhyming). Leet can be highly lyrical and stylistic (even poetic), the way a typical pidgin language can be.

Over-exclamation and other emphasis

Another common feature of Leet is over-exclamation, where a sentence is postfixed with many exclamation marks.

In some cases, because the exclamation symbol (!) resides on the same key as the number one (1) on QWERTY keyboards, over-exclamation can be accidentally (or purposely) typed with extraneous numerical digits, owing to the excitement of the typist: "This is really exciting!!!!!11". This was especially likely in the context of fast-paced online multiplayer games, where typing carefully leaves the gamer vulnerable to attack. Some deliberately type the numbers, while others take the exclamation further and sarcastically replace some of the digits with words, "This is really exciting!!!!!!11eleven1111one". (In some cases you may throw in an "eleventy", "eleventy-billion", "shift+1", "UNO/uno", or even a two.

Other common typos and uses, whether intentional or otherwise:

• the use of the adjacent ~ (tilde) and @ keys
• the mistyping of the question mark following the same line as the exclamation mark, the most common being / and slash, as in "What are you talking about???//??/?SLASH//?QUESTIONMARK?" (Again, you may also add "shift+/" or "shift+slash" to this.) A similar derivation comes from the location of the Z key next to the left shift. When typing words such as OMG, it has become common to instead type ZOMG to simulate the accidental typing of the Z in an effort to press the shift key.

In addition to variations on punctuation-based emphasis, it is common to combine two (or more) words and capitalize them to show emphasis. Perhaps most common would be the combination of OMG and WTF to produce OMGWTF. For irony or excitement, some will then add ancillary SMS phrases to the end (i.e. OMGWTFBBQHAX!). This ending generally has the same meaning as the saying "...with gravy," commonly added to the end of sentences. This creates OMGWTFBBQHAX, meaning, "Oh my god; what the f***!? (with added emphasis)?." Also common is NOWAI (from "no way"). Another phonetic abbreviation is omigawd (OMG with a "valley girl" accent, which is visible in the phonetic word structure).

As with most alternative Leet spellings or grammar, inclusion of these traits in a sentence is often done on purpose. The intent is typically to either lighten the mood, strengthen a point (by mocking someone who may not be party to the discussion), or convey a sense of irony, depending on the context.

Vocabulary

Main article: Internet slang

Many words originally derived from Leet slang have now become part of the modern Internet slang, such as "pwned". The primary driving force of new vocabulary in Leet is the need to describe new phenomena. Another force is common misspelling and mistyping such as "teh", and intentional misspellings, especially the "z" at the end of words ("skillz"). Another prominent example of a surviving Leet expression is w00t (now sometimes purposely spelled as w0t0), an exclamation of joy.

Additionally, new words (or corruptions thereof) may arise from a need to make one's username unique. As any given Internet service reaches more people, the number of names available to a given user is drastically reduced. While many users may wish to have the username "CatLover," for example, in many cases it is only possible for one user to have the moniker. As such, degradations of the name may evolve, such as "C@L0vr." As the Leet cipher is highly dynamic, there is a wider possibility for multiple users to share the "same" name, through combinations of phonemes and transliterations.

Other common misspellings now standard in Leet are:

• evar, evah, and eva for ever. Generally used the phrase "Worst. [Something]. Evar." (e.g. "Worst. Game. Evar.") This construct is largely credited as a reference to a phrase often uttered by The Comic Book Guy, a recurring character on The Simpsons, which, itself, is a reference to a complaint uttered about the quality of the show by participants in the alt.tv.simpsons newsgroup.
• German [ist] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help) for is has crept into Leet, including English encipherings. It is frequently used with word death ("Mp3 ist death."). Also, "[krieg] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help)," German for war, in this context means, approximately, favorable ("Mp3 ist krieg."). This usage is common among internet users who are fans of black metal.
• über (German: above, over) has also made its way into gaming communities to represent a quality of superiority. It usually appears as a prefix attached to adjectives, ("His rushes are überquick;" "The rocket launcher is überpowerful") although it is occasionally used as a standalone descriptor ("Her playing style is über," meaning "Her playing style is great."). This is often written without the umlaut over the u.
• smrt, smrat, or samrt for smart—The former may also be an intentional reference to an episode of The Simpsons in which Homer misspells smart in song whilst burning his high school diploma: "I am so smart! I am so smart! S-M-R-T! I mean S-M-A-R-T!"
• Teh, often spelled t3h, standing for the.
• gom for omg, meaning "Oh My God" or "Oh My Gosh".
• J00 for you—This originates from either the J or Ch sound when the word you is following a consonant, such as "Don't you know?" which sounds like "Don't joo/chu know?" when spoken. It may also derive from other languages where J has the same sound as Y.
• Ma or Mah for my. This originated from either a southern dialect (in the case of "Mah") of pronunciation or possibly rap/hip hop pronunciations of the word. Similarly, meh can stand for me.

Kekeke

The expression "kekeke" is widely believed to have come from Koreans. In the Korean language, people expressed laughter in writing by repeating the letter "ㅋ" (Korean letter for the hard k [as opposed to the g or soft k, "ㄱ"], called 키읔 or "kieuk") many times over. Since early versions of StarCraft did not allow players to write in Hangul (the Korean writing system), Koreans would romanize their language. Hence, kekeke was born. The phrase is an onomatopoetic Korean phrase similar to the English and French "hahaha", Spanish "jajaja", Chinese "hehehe", or Japanese "fufufu" (also romanized as "huhuhu"; the Japanese syllable in question begins with ɸ, a voiceless bilabial fricative similar to both English "f" and "h"), and is meant to express laughter. It is often used in-game as an expression of exaltation or as a form of mockery. Commonly, it is associated with a simple StarCraft tactic that involves massing a large number of units and using them to attack an enemy base before its owner is sufficiently prepared to defend. This is often called a Zergling Rush, after the StarCraft faction for whom the tactic was created. The phrase "Zerg Rush kekeke!!!" is sometimes used outside of the game to indicate any form of overwhelming or swarming force.

Some English speakers use "kekeke" as a form of laughing, similar to giggling although it is still primarily used by Korean speakers.

The phrase also occurs on the MMORPG World of Warcraft, although its origin is completely different. There are two major factions in the game which 'speak' different languages. All chat text entered by a member of one faction will appear jumbled to a member of the other, and vice versa. As a result, members of the Alliance faction will see "kek" when a member of the Horde faction had typed "lol". The cipher works a little differently for longer words though, and "hahaha" becomes "kekekek". This has become an in-joke amongst World of Warcraft players. This is also a good example of what is known as an Easter Egg in the game World of Warcraft. The game writers at Blizzard used hundreds of famous phrases and names in populating the game world. KeK (Orcish for LOL) was intentional.

Kekeke is also used as an evil laugh and is used by players using devious tactics and/or playing evil characters. While this usage is thought to have its roots in the laugh of Kefka, the main villain from Final Fantasy VI, kekeke is commonly associated with laughs of devious characters in Japanese manga, anime, and video games, and has made its way through various translations.

Pr0n

Pr0n or pron is Leet slang for pornography.

This is a deliberately inaccurate spelling/pronunciation for porn, where a zero is often used to replace the letter O. It is sometimes used in legitimate communications (such as email discussion groups, Usenet, chat rooms, and internet web pages) to circumvent language and content filters, which may reject messages as offensive or spam. The word also helps prevent search engines from associating commercial sites with pornography—which might result in unwelcome traffic. Pr0n is also sometimes spelled backwards (n0rp) to further obscure the meaning to potential uninformed readers.

It can also refer to ASCII art depicting pornographic images, or to photos of the internals of consumer and industrial hardware.

Prawn, a spoof of the misspelling, has started to come into use, as well; conversely, in Kingdom of Loathing prawn, referring to a kind of crustacean, is spelled pr0n, leading to the creation of food items such as “pr0n chow mein” and "pr0n Joe Zhang".

Pwn

Main articles: pwn and owned

Pwn refers to the domination of a player in a video game or argument (rather than just a win). For example, in a multiplayer first-person shooter game, a player with a default starting gun defeats an opponent carrying a vastly superior weapon. This would indicate dominant skill in the player with the inferior weapon, who outplayed (pwned) the player with superior firepower. As is a common characteristic of Leet, the term has also been adapted into a noun and adjective, pwnage, which can refer to the situation of pwning or to the superiority of its subject (e.g., "He is a very good player. He is pwnage.").

There are several commonly accepted theories about its origin, most of which suggest derivation from the word own, a term once used by hackers to indicate full control over a computer. The word pwn means virtually the same as own.

Some people pronounce pwn as pown or poon. Others prefer "pawn." The star of Pure Pwnage insists that the pronunciation is simply own- this is the most common pronunciation.

A few theories state that pwn originates from "pure ownage," "player own," "power own," "perfectly own," or "pistol own." Using pwn rather than own means that one has beaten his opponent to a higher degree than own. Another theory is that the term came into being through the misspelling of the word pawn, pawn being the lowest prized chess piece. Therefore, when one has pwned someone, they have captured a more highly prized and powerful piece, such as a bishop, rook, or queen, with the lowest piece, hence pawn. However, even this word has been purposefully used as p4wn3d, as in, "I p4wn3d you."

Another theory is based around online forum speak, where the text :p is usually seen as a smiley sticking its tongue out. Users would type :pwned and when the program rendered :p, it would show up as a round face, standing in for the o.

Yet another theory is that a Warcraft custom map maker misspelled "own" in his map. The phrase then spread. One more theory is that a Counter-Strike mod maker also misspelled "own" when writing a script to have "Player1 just got (p)wned by Player2!"

n00b

Main article: newbie

Within Leet, the term n00b (and derivations thereof) is used extensively. The word, meaning newbie (as in, new and inexperienced or uninformed), and is used as a means of segregating the "elite" members of a group from outsiders. There have been other variations of the term. For example, nub, nubcake (sometimes spelled nubcaek), and n00blet (a n00b is somebody who is inferior to another person).

Though they are often used interchangeably, there is a widely accepted separation of the definitions of newb and n00b: a newb is a person who is new to something, while a n00b is a detestable or inferior person. It is used in a derogatory sense, implying the target is being ignorant of his or her own failures, blaming others without reason, failing to learn, etc. Example: "Player One is a newb because he joined the game yesterday. Player Two is a n00b, because he has played the game for a year and still can't win." The word noob is the most common insult in all online games.

In primitive Leet, as used on BBS systems in the 1980s and into the very early 1990s, the usual term was Christmas Kiddie. A variant was greenie or Christmas greenie which was derived from the cowboy slang greenhorn. Christmas Kiddie which referred to the phenomenon where BBS systems were flooded with new members immediately following Christmas and Hanukkah because modems were a common holiday gift. If the kiddie was young, the term ruggie (derived from rugrat meaning child) might be used.

rawr or roar

rawr is used in place of describing complex emotions involving frustration. roar can also be used instead to sound more masculine.

Suxxor or suxorz

Suxxor (pronounced suhk-zohr) is a derogatory term which originated in warez culture and is currently used in multi-user environments such as multiplayer video games and instant messaging. The word is a modified version of the phrase “to suck”, and the meaning is the same as the English slang. It is the opposite of roxor.

Suxorz could also be interpreted as a combination of Internet-slang and Emoticons, "Sux" being something that is generally bad, "Orz" being someone frustrated so much they're on the ground or bashing their head on the floor out of frustration, In whole it can mean "Is so bad that I want to bash my head against the ground".

There are two main uses: as a verb and a noun. Using the word as a verb, one could say, “Dude, that suxxorz!”, meaning, “Dude, that sucks.” Using the word as a noun, one might say, “You are a suxxor.”, meaning “You are a bad person; you are bad at what you do.” Literally translated, this means, “You are the suck,” but it could also mean, “you are a sucker (i.e. fool).” The two variations appeared independently: the verb version is antonymous to roxxor (Leet for “to rock”), and the noun could be a counterpart to haxor (Leet for hacker).

Suxxor is one of the early Leet words to use the -xor word-ending.

LOL

Main article: LOL (Internet slang)

Among the early Internet slang was LOL, an indication of appreciation of humor, literally meaning “Laughing Out Loud” or “Lots Of Laughs”. Similar acronyms were quickly added to the lexicon, including ROFL (“Rolling On the Floor Laughing”), LMAO (“Laughing My Ass Off”), and the combination of the two; ROFLMAO ("Rolling On the Floor Laughing My Ass Off"). Another acronym is IALSHRNYWEK ("I Am Laughing So Hard Right Now You Wouldn't Even Know"). Derivations of the acronym quickly became incorporated into the Leet vocabulary. LOL can also be displayed typed as lawl. ROFL or ROTFL can also be combined with LOL- ROTFLOL (Rolling On The Floor Laughing Out Loud) The two longest known acronyms for laughing are ROTFLMAOWPABSFATH (Rolling on the floor laughing my ass off while playing a bass solo for all to hear) and ROTFLMAOWPABSFATHASMFWDCCDIF (Rolling on the floor laughing my ass off with playing a bass solo for all to hear and stuffing my face with dangerously cheesy Cheetos - d@mn I'm fat...)

Leet is prone to the corruption of words to suit rhythm and rhyming. This, in addition to various ironic corruptions of the words (such as ROFLcaeks, ROFLcopter, ROFLtaco, LMAOnade, LMAOtank, LOLLERskates, LMAOynnaise, LOLLERgasm, LOLipops, LOLLERcaust, and LOLLERcoaster, etc.), has led to the creation of tongue-in-cheek words and phrases that don't actually utilize the original acronym, such as “roffle my woffles [sic]” and lawlsauce. Many people will pronounce the acronym as an actual word. For example, instead of saying each letter individually (“L-O-L”), the speaker will phoneticize the acronym's pronunciation (lawl or loll). More often than not, however, lawl or lawlz, is used sarcastically as a contrast to LOL in a number of ways. It can be used in place of "LOL" to express how a joke was, in actuality, unfunny. It can be used in a self-deprecating fashion, resembling something of a resigned sigh (e.g. "I just got owned again. Lawl."). It can be used to provide additional sarcasm to a statement (e.g. "Yeah, best idea evar. Lawl."). It can also sometimes be used in a sarcastic but non-hostile manner to express weak amusement, much like a polite laugh or the emotive term, "heh.".

The word "lawl" is now starting to be used, which is the spelling of the pronounciation of lol as a word.

List of Commonly Used "Words:"

Lol, rofl, lm(f)ao, roflm(f)ao, g2g, om(f)g, gg/gf/vgg/vgf, noob/newb/nub, wtf/wth, ttyl, bb, ffs.

See also

Related

• ASCII art
• Emoticon
• Internet slang
• Jeff K.
• Megatokyo, a webcomic in which some characters speak in Leet
• Typographical error
• Verlan
• Script kiddie

Similar and related dialects

• Alternative political spelling
• Hexspeak
• Pig Latin
• StudlyCaps
• Volapuk encoding

Terminology

• Canting
• pidgin
• creole language
• mixed language
• language
• dialect
• slang
• idiom
• transliteration

Tools

• L33t-5p34K G3n3r@t0r v3r510N 0.6, Leet-speak translation

References

Vocabulary

• Blashki, Katherine. "Game Geek's Goss: Linguistic Creativity In Young Males Within An Online University Forum (94/\/\3 933k'5 9055oneone)" (PDF). Australian Journal of Emerging Technologies and Society. 3. Retrieved September 12. {{cite journal}}: Check date values in: |accessdate= (help); Unknown parameter |accessyear= ignored (|access-date= suggested) (help); Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)
• Bruce Sterling, The Hacker Crackdown: Law and Disorder on the Electronic Frontier ISBN 0-553-56370-X.

Syntax and structure

• Jeroen, Kristof (2004). "According to a research at Gent University". Retrieved 19 june. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |accessdate= (help); Unknown parameter |accessyear= ignored (|access-date= suggested) (help)
• Several publications on "letter position/identity" can be found in the website of. "Manuel Perea". Retrieved 2 september. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |accessdate= (help); Unknown parameter |accessyear= ignored (|access-date= suggested) (help)

Evolution, current state, and spread

• Hudon, Mindy. "Twin Language". Retrieved 29 January. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |accessdate= (help); Unknown parameter |accessyear= ignored (|access-date= suggested) (help)
• Gay, Greg. "Origins of Written Language". Retrieved 29 January. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |accessdate= (help); Unknown parameter |accessyear= ignored (|access-date= suggested) (help)