Online Language Finds Its Voice


'Leetspeak' Is Hot Button With Gamers, Scholars; One Campus Isn't 'LOL'

By CHRISTOPHER RHOADS
August 23, 2007; Page A1
TEh INTeRn3T i5 THr3@+EN1N9 t0 Ch@n93 thE W4Y wE $p34k.
(Translation: The Internet is threatening to change the way we speak.)
For years, heavy users of Internet games and chat groups have conversed in their own written language, often indecipherable to outsiders. Now, some of those online words are gaining currency in popular culture -- even in spoken form.
Online gamers use "pwn" to describe annihilating an opponent, or owning them. The word came from misspelling "own" by gamers typing quickly and striking the letter P instead of the neighboring letter O. Other words substitute symbols or numbers for similar-looking letters, such as the number 3 for the letter E. The language is sometimes called elite speak, or leetspeak, written as l33t 5p34k.

Full article here:
What Did U $@y? Online Language Finds Its Voice - WSJ.com

Posted: Sat - August 25, 2007 at 04:28 PM          

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