ROLFLMAO, they're even shaped in binary.

1337 = teh win!

incidently, Teh is the thai word for cool, you pronounce it thay, r0x0r pic btw

"What? Another girl! Tell me my boy. *whispers* what have you been doing?" - Tobias

cool, I thought teh was where people spelt 'the' wrong and couldnt be bothered to correct it.
No, really I did.

"I'm not a Corsair, I just spend my time taking work from them"
Child of the Hispania- http://www.fanfiction.net/read.php?storyid=1404122

Sorry for a dumb question, but could someone please give the non-geeks here a definition of '1337'?

1337
LEET

Diminuation of 'elite'.

Statement: "This young gentleman is of the elite."
Translation: "d00d iz teh 1337!"

Edited by - Jevryn Markes on 17-07-2003 22:11:54

"133t" or "l337" is a habit of (my bias is coming out here) some people of questionable mental competence who believe it is cool to make communication as difficult as possible. The idea is to replace symbols normally used to represent number or letters with symbols that are not normally used to represent those same numbers or letters. "133t" = "leet," etc. There is also a tendency to replace some letters or letter combinations with symbols that represent similar sounds (Thanks = thanx). I once ran across an article by a professor of writing somewhere who thought this was just the coolest thing and much more effective as a means of self-expression than conventional English. I think that professor is on crack.

Enthusiasts apparently differentiate between a formal and informal form of the "language" (it's not a language, it's an alphabet at best), Hardcore L337 and L337 Lite or something of that sort. Below are exambles of the Light then the Hardcore taken from http://www.cscentral.com/features/l33t/ Please do not abuse them.

A Sample Conversation In L337 Light:

Joey- H3Y, BUD!
Bill- H3Y, D0 ! KN0W U?
Joey- N0, ! JUS7 W@N7 D1R3CT!0N5 70 7H3 M@Y0R'5 0FF1C3. C0U1D U H31P M3?
Bill- 5UR3, D0WN 7H@7 57R337 @ND @R0UND 7H@7 C0RN3R, !7'5 R!6H7 7H3R3, U
C@N'7 M!55 !7.
jOEY- 7H@NX M@N!

A Sample Conversation In Hardcore L337: (Edit: apparently TLR board doesn't handle it well)

Clerk- /V/ @ \/ / /{ 3 /_/ /o /_/, 5 / \?
/
Joey- \/ 3 5, /_/ ( @ /\/, / ' /\// /_ 0 0 /< / /\/ 6 /[ 0 /
7 /{ 3 /\// @ \/ 0 \.
/
Clerk- / ' /\// 5 0 \ \ \/, /{ 3' 5 /\/ 0 7 / /\/
/
\ / 6 /{ 7 /\/ 0 //\/.

Joey- 0 /<, 7 /{ @ /\/ \/.
/
I have ablsoultely no clue what the hardcore bit means. I suspect I'm better off that way.

Edited by - Cynicism Inc. on 17-07-2003 22:16:44

no one speaks in hardcore, the 1337 dictionary has evolved somewhat, words like 'teh' are words in the 1337 dictionary though, it IS cause someone couldnt say the right, but its trickyer than that:

wehn you touch type, you have half the keyboard per hand, 'the' has 2 keys 't' & 'e' for the left hand and 'h' for the right. when people are typing really quickly, one hand might be quicker than the other or whatever, the point is, its easier for someone to write 'teh' than 'the', so ALOT of the time teh come out by mistake. this happend so much 1337 speak encorporated it into its language. 1337 isnt just about replacing as many letters with numbers, that was the core of the language but since then, after a public ridiculing of n00behs bor it, the language changed, people would use numers less and propper words more as it was ALOT faster to write in chat rooms and in games WITHOUT numbers than with, so speed became the driving factor in the language now. So words got misspelled because of slow fingers but this was so widespread that it all got incorporated. text speak came right along for the ride, as did the age old nerd first letter words, like OMG and LOL, they all get fused in and the language is growing all the time.

sure its comedy when people talk it all the time and no one ever uses it as a staple conversation peice, but theres always a moment when you insert some into a sentence without being conciously aware of it.
This image is taking the piss outa those who go outa their way to speak like that though, and there ARE those that do, ive seen them, and theyre a bunch of n00bs


-arcon
------

heheh


General Fang
leader of clan FMM
www.FMM.homestead.com

Personally, I think 'l337 lite' is sort of funny when used in the correct situations. I think of it as silly (and childish), and therefore I use it when I'm feeling silly. (I try not to feel childish ) Basically, when I'm in a good/humerous mood, I'll use it a few times. (On the internet, though. Using speech like that during normal, real life conversation is a very poor idea.)

You know when you're in a good mood (sometimes in a really good mood , as in, laughing so hard you can barely look at the monitor). Those are the times that I like to use "l337 lite".
Example: We're playing a really good, and fun, game of natural selection. You'd frequently hear me saying things like "Omg, onos is teh rulz!" in global chat, while I'd say in teamspeech "Guys, they're trying to set up a siege near silo hive! Get there!". Other nice sayings are "lag is teh sux," "I am teh muncheh" "lerk is teh pwn" and stuff like that.
Generally, when I'm not feeling serious, "l337speek is teh pwn!" :p

Why make your own mistakes when someone else has already made them for you?
-Learn from the skeletons floating in the piranha pool: NO SWIMMING[!

personally I think l337 is funny as hell, and is always a joke never to be taken serioulsy, therefore I laugh at the f00lz who try to use it in a serious way, although as arcon said it does occaisionally pop out at random unintended times.

like the pic.. really cool..
IMHO, these l33t things.. ? they are impossible to figure out for me at least. i'm randomly thinking of msn nicknames that some ppl i know come up with;
< naNi w0 t3 n1 iReTe ^^o m@nZoku $uru koTo w@ naI fUkuZat$u nI kaRanDa k0koRo nO suKim@ kaRa nIgeDas3~!!~ > someone tell me what that is in english because i fail to recognise the universal language.
otherwise, i'm completely blind to the new languages other than the occasional 'u', 'thx', and some other stuff like IMO (which i first encounteren in TLR)