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Leet (often Eleet, leetspeak, leetspeek, l33t, 31337, or 1337; from "élite") is a cipher, or novel form of English spelling. It is characterized by the use of non-alphabet characters to stand for letters bearing a superficial resemblance, and by a number of quasi-standard spelling changes such as the substitution of "z" for final "s" and "x" for "(c)ks." Leet is traditionally used on the Internet and other online communities, such as bulletin board systems, sometimes to complement Internet slang or "chatspeak." Leet is used by hackers, crackers, script kiddies, gamers, Animators, and even lamers. Although leet is not popular amongst some hackers, who think that it is immature and prefer their prose to reflect the cleanliness of syntax of their code (although consistent leetspeak could arguably do so), it is nonetheless a cultural phenomenon well-known amongst hackers and many other internet users, and is used by many computer professionals because of this.
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") to be leet or leetspeak; instead, they refer to it by such terms as "AOL speak" because they associate such habits with users who came to the internet later, many of whom first used software MSN Messenger or AOL Instant Messenger to communicate with each other. Another convention sometimes associated with leetspeak or Internet chatting is capitalizing every other letter (LiKe ThIs), sometimes called stickycaps. A similar habit involves capitalizing every letter except for vowels (LiKe THiS).
The term "leet" comes from the word "élite." Leet can be either pronounced as "leet" (monosyllabic, rhymes with "meat") or by pronouncing the L separate from the rest of the word as "el eat" (élite). The most probable explanation of its origin is from bulletin board systems (BBSs) in the 1980s and early 1990s where having "élite" status on a BBS allowed a user access to file areas, games, and special chat rooms, often including archives of pirated software, pornography, and text files of dubious quality documenting topics such as how to construct explosives and manufacture illegal drugs.
Leet writing, or leetspeak may have developed to defeat keyword scanning used by BBS sysops for message boards to discourage the discussion of questionable or forbidden topics (such as pornography, pirated software, or cracking).
People who enjoy irony sometimes use leetspeak to draw attention to "secrets" they believe no one actually cares about.
Some people think that leetspeak or hakspek that shortens text may have been developed to decrease bandwidth usage before the bandwidth explosion of the 1990s, but this is most likely not the case, as such methods would have had extremely minimal effect on actual bandwidth usage. It is more likely that it developed as a lazy shorthand for typists.
Leet is regaining popularity in SMS (Short Message Service) media. More recently, leet has re-entered the mainstream thanks to its use on various popular websites such as blogs and webcomics.
Leet is a form of written slang or street talk for the information highway. It is sometimes used to create group identity and to obscure meaning from outsiders, especially newbies (which may be written "n00bs"). It also establishes a hierarchy, as more complex forms of leet are increasingly unreadable to the untrained eye (consider the phrase "PHr3Ku3N7ly H4s|{3d K0o£St330nZ!": it translates to "frequently asked questions". Note the extraneous h in front of asked and the construction "teeonz" as meaning "tions"). Simple forms of leet have become quite mainstream, as employees use the alternative spellings to circumvent their companies' email filters designed to censor swearwords and other objectionable content.
Websites exist that are written entirely in leet. There are also converter programs which automatically convert ordinary English text into leet, at varying levels of complexity (depending on how 1337 the program is). External links: , a web tool to surf the web the l33t way; .
There are many incarnations of leet, and it is continuously evolving as more people add to it, and thus, a single word can be "spelled" in many different ways. For example, "phonetic" could be |>|-|0n371><, p|-|0|\|3+1|<, |>h0|\|371<, ph0n371k.
Note that in true leet, the following are considered improper.
Frequently, common typing errors are also absorbed into leet, such as
Another common feature of leet is over-exclamation, where a sentence is postfixed with many exclamation marks: pHu><x0|2z j00 L4yMUr!!!!!!!!!! In some cases, because the exclamation symbol (!) resides on the same key as the number one, over-exclamation can be accidentally typed with extraneous digits, owing to the excitement of the typist: y0 d00d th1s 5h1zZ47 R0Xx0rzZ!!!!!11 Additionally, the adjacent ~ (tilde) and @ keys are used in this fashion: t3h leik this OwNz!!11!?!??!@!!????//1!!~~ Some users have adopted this and include it deliberately. A growing phenomenon is deliberately typing the word "one": pwnz0r3d!!!!!11oneoneone; in some cases, this has been purposely exaggerated for comic or ub3r-L33+ effect, i.e., L0l!!!11!eleventy-one1!1!11one1. It is also used to poke fun at users of AOL speak, and other 'lesser' cultures. Note that letter-to-number translations tend not to occur within these "oneoneone" blocks.
The webcomic MegaTokyo has caused a popularisation of leet through the characters Largo and Junpei, who are fluent in leet, and the use of leet on some of the other characters clothing. Even Boo, the hamster of Baldur's Gate fame, can squeek in leet. Some of the phrases are regularly quoted by fans of the webcomic.
(subject to a great deal of individual variation):
| A | 4 or /\ or @ | G | 9 or 6 | M | //. or ^^ or |v| or [V] or {V} or |\/| or /\/\ or (u) | S | 5 or $ or z | Y | Y or '/ or `/ or V/ or \-/ or j also ¥ (alt+0165) |
| B | 8 or 6 or |3 or |> | H | # or [-] or {=} or <~> or |-| or ]~[ or }{ | N | // or ^/ or |\| or /\/ or [\] or <\> or {\} | T | 7 or + or -|- or 1 | Z | 2 or z or ~\_ or ~/_ |
| C | [ or ¢ or < or ( | I | 1 or ! or | | O | 0 or () | U | (_) or |_| or v | ||
| D | |) or o| or [) | J | ,| or _| or ; | P | |^ or |* or |o or |> or |" or |? | V | \/ or < | ||
| E | 3 or & | K | |< or |{ or ]{ or }< | Q | 9 or (,) or <| or ¶ | W | \/\/ or '// or \^/ or (n) or \V/ | ||
| F | |= | L | 1 or | or |_ | R | |2 or 2 or P\ | X | >< |
In recent years, leet has dropped out of style in some communities. Some gamers and internet users choose not to use it as they consider it to signify weakness and immaturity rather than coolness or of "having skills/sk1LLz". However, many words from leet are now a significant part of modern Internet culture, such as "pwned", the common leet misspellings such as "teh", and especially the "z" at the end of words, such as "skillz". Another prominent example of a surviving leet expression is the ever-popular "woot/w007". Also, gamers for whom using leet speak seriously is out of style, sometimes use it in a joking context. "h42 h42, u ar3z s00 1337" or "ph342 m/\ 1337 sk1llz."
Another location for similar text obfuscation is in Multiplayer gaming, especially involving other characters from the ASCII set. Some Multiplayer games allow for users to be kicked out if they are "being lame" or generally annoying the crowd, by using a simple command like "!kick username" which works fine as long as the username constitutes letters that can be typed with a normal keyboard. To prevent some kicks, people may use names such as "Élí†è Hàxór" which is difficult to type in, if possible at all.
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