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What are the Kids saying?

Teenagers have developed a new techie language to communicate with friends via txt and instant messages.

For us oldies (remember when you thought over 20 was old?) this new language may seem totally baffling.

So with this in mind, here's a bit of a heads up on information-age slang that's commonly referred to as 'leetspeek', or leet for short.

Leet is a type of computer slang where a person replaces regular letters with other keyboard characters to form words phonetically.
As there is no definitive way of combining letters, numbers and characters to create substitutes for phrases or words, different combinations will produce the same message. Once you get the hang of translating phonetics you can begin to work out what's being said.

Just before you read on, I'm guessing you'll get through the three points and examples below and ask 'Why??'.

Good question! It's important to remember that the leetspeek community encourages and awards individual creativity, resulting in a dynamic written language that eludes conformity or consistency. And as leetspeakers like to disobey the rules of English grammar so anything goes.

•    Numbers are often used as letters and non-alphabet characters.
The word "leet" could be written as "1337," with "1" replacing the letter L, "3" posing as a backwards letter E, and "7" resembling the letter T. Others include "8" replacing the letter B, "9" used as a G, "0" (zero) instead of O, and so on. And (get this...) using 5 for 's', the word "leetspeek" can be written as "133t5p33k".
•    Letters substitute other letters
Letters can be substituted for other letters that may sound alike. Using "Z" for a final letter S, and "X" for words ending in the letters C or K is common. For example, leetspeekers might refer to their computer "5x1llz" (skills).
•    Characters can create letters
Non-alphanumeric characters may be combined to form letters. For example, using slashes to create "/\/\" can substitute for the letter M, and two pipes combined with a hyphen to form "|-|" is often used in place of the letter H. Thus, the word ham could be written as "|-|4/\/\."
•    Common phrases can be abbreviated
Some common phrases are lol (laugh out loud), kewl (cool), joo (you) and d00d (dude).
If all this just seems downright confusing and you're determined to get the hang of it (or just want to know what your kids are really saying) check out the online Urban dictionary at www.urbandictionary.com