… according to Microsoft.
Key points for learning leetspeek
• Numbers are often used as letters. The term “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. “0″ (zero) will typically replace the letter “O.”
• Characters of similar appearance can be used to replace the letters they resemble. For example, “5″ or even “$” can replace the letter S. Applying this style, the word “leetspeek” can be written as “133t5p33k” or even “!337$p34k,” with “4″ replacing the letter A.
• 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 “5×1llz” (skills).
• Rules of grammar are rarely obeyed. Many leetspeekers will capitalize every letter except for vowels (LiKe THiS) and otherwise reject conventional English style and grammar.
• Mistakes are often uncorrected. Common typing misspellings (or typos) such as “teh” instead of “the” are left uncorrected and may be adopted to replace the correct spelling.
• 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//.”
