Diary of a Wolfeman

A parent’s primer to computer slang

No, I am not kidding. To wit:

While it’s important to respect your children’s privacy, understanding what your teenager’s online slang means and how to decipher could be important in certain situations and as you help guide their online experience. While it has many nicknames, information-age slang is commonly referred to as leetspeek, or leet for short. Leet (a vernacular form of “elite”) is a specific type of computer slang where a user replaces regular letters with other keyboard characters to form words phonetically—creating the digital equivalent of Pig Latin with a twist of hieroglyphics.

Ok, on the surface, the whole thing is almost legit – parents should be watching their children’s on-line activities. Anyone who says you should watch your own children has my attention for showing a brain cell.

Down at the end of the article, though, they go through a few examples of common leet words. Specifically, “Leet words of concern or indicating possible illegal activity”. You know, the ones that may indicate piracy, like warez, sploits and pron.

So, the message is that parents should check on their children, but the only real worry is whether or not they are pirating software or trafficking in pornography. Never mind the cyber-stalker your 12 yr old daughter has been chatting up in the dominatrix chatroom. It’s all about the bottom line, wot?

Please, stop the hurting…

This entry was posted on Wednesday, July 6th, 2005 at 11:35 pm and is filed under Geekery. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.