Project English Language

on (LEET, L337, 1337) and its followers

   I may be part of an breed unwelcome online, so the following may not be a common opinion. Then again, I hope I only attract an audience of the quality which would share this opinion (and yes, that is a biased statement). I hate weblogs run by dumb thirteen-year-old girls which overuse (read: “use even once”) any of the following “leet”-type words, phrases, and practices.

fren(s) lol ttfn rotfl nvm omg jk imho brb ttyl lmao lmfao atm g2g stfu wtf w/e   banned words: neenjaaaaar ppl grrl guestbook ne1 neways every1 cya rox rawks womyn da dat lyk u w/ 4 2 n o u y? r yur ur peeps wen gurl boi sry any1 thanx ya wel teh sk8 gr8 [any substitution of the number 8 for the letter sequence A T E] luv dat plz jus 2moro cuz enuff yu yr wut nuthin meen leet sux pwn[3d] skewl tho liek w00t!@# wateva hear/here no/know their/they're/there rite/right to/too/two your/you're waste/waist -ors -0R5 -orz -z ALL CAPS sTiCkY cApS [Capitalizing Every Single Word In A Title Sentence] !!!11!!111!! a/s/l <g> :) <3 31337 L337

   Just so perpetrators of this linguistic murder know, I automatically write off any infested web page, with whatever content contained, however otherwise-useful it may have been, as worthless. Yes, worthless, uneducated junk. Trash. Shmuts and shmattes*. Scraps of thoughtlessness not worth my time. I don’t care how smart and web-savvy you think you are, if you use “leet”, you are either stupid or fast becoming so.
   Which brings me to the irony of the very moniker the system (if you want to glorify babble by calling it a system) proudly bears. Derived from, or more accurately, a corruption of the word “elite”, “leet” marks it users as far from such. It would fit under the phrase “legends in their own eyes”, I think.
   Anything but elite, “leet” users are merely part of a growing, glassy-eyed herd of media thralls who, like James Whitcombe Riley’s “wee little worm”, imagine themselves as the rulers of all the world, because they know nothing outside their inconsequential hickory-nut:

A wee little worm in a hickory-nut
Sang out, as happy as he could be,
“Oh, I live in the heart of the whole, round world,
“And it all belongs to me!”

   Which brings me to the banner and link introducing this entry. Opposition to “leet” is important to anyone who values his language, and especially to teachers who I’ve heard tell of students daring to turn in papers written in this garbage. Project English Language maintains a blacklist of “leet” words, phrases, and typographic/grammatical practices which I highly recommend (the list, that is: not the words). Though not exhuastive, it comes close enough to make its point — and mine too!

   Oh, and if you use so much as a single word from the above unfortunate lexicon, I will assume, until shown otherwise, that you are a thirteen-year-old know-nothing (or are at least on a similar intellectual level). You probably also had to use a dictionary (do you know how to use a dictionary?) to read this post.

Crosspost: Scraps and Harbour in the Scramble