do lolcatz speak 1337?
November 7, 2009 7:34 PM Subscribe
do lolcatz speak 1337? or is there another term for this?
similar to this question, but different. leet/1337 speak is when it's numerals + alpha, right? is there a (common) name for the lolcatz-speak? should i be using "1337" and i'm just being overly skeptical?
please, help me to get my geek on in an accurate manner.
similar to this question, but different. leet/1337 speak is when it's numerals + alpha, right? is there a (common) name for the lolcatz-speak? should i be using "1337" and i'm just being overly skeptical?
please, help me to get my geek on in an accurate manner.
1337 is when there's a mix of numeral-for-alpha substitutions and systematic letter substitutions/misspellings: porn -> pr0n; skills -> skillz; owned -> pwned; etc. It is not merely the substitutions, although in a small sample size, it may appear so.
'lolcat' is the name for the systematic misspelling and poor grammar found in the amusingly captioned cat pictures. It does not include numeral substitutions, and does include grammatical failings not found in leet.
1337, as it's actually spoken in the wild (by gamers, mostly), often borrows from any and all other internet speaks. For instance, I've seen, "i can h4z pwnage?" in the wild.
posted by Netzapper at 8:15 PM on November 7, 2009 [3 favorites]
'lolcat' is the name for the systematic misspelling and poor grammar found in the amusingly captioned cat pictures. It does not include numeral substitutions, and does include grammatical failings not found in leet.
1337, as it's actually spoken in the wild (by gamers, mostly), often borrows from any and all other internet speaks. For instance, I've seen, "i can h4z pwnage?" in the wild.
posted by Netzapper at 8:15 PM on November 7, 2009 [3 favorites]
"Lolspeak" is the most common term for the cutesy cat language, though I've also heard it referred to as "kitteh" or "lolkitteh."
posted by Rhaomi at 8:24 PM on November 7, 2009
posted by Rhaomi at 8:24 PM on November 7, 2009
Best answer: No question about lolcat would be complete without a link to the LolCat Bible Translation Project.
posted by Sidhedevil at 8:28 PM on November 7, 2009 [3 favorites]
posted by Sidhedevil at 8:28 PM on November 7, 2009 [3 favorites]
Lolspeak is not the same as 1337, but there can be some overlap. For instance, "t3h" is used in both.
posted by juv3nal at 8:49 PM on November 7, 2009
posted by juv3nal at 8:49 PM on November 7, 2009
I like to believe that lolspeak is more a set of rules of grammar, and 1337 is more a set of rules for spelling. It just makes more sense to me that way.
posted by InsanePenguin at 8:55 PM on November 7, 2009 [2 favorites]
posted by InsanePenguin at 8:55 PM on November 7, 2009 [2 favorites]
Yeah, I tend to think of 1337 as more about certain idiosyncratic spellings and morphemes than just the superficial alphanumeric substitution. For example, "Pwnz0red j0r 4ss n00b!!1" loses little of its 1337ness if you write it without any alphanumeric subsitutions: "Pwnzored jor ass noob!" On the other hand, "| b347 y0u, n3wbi3!" could not necessarily be called "1337."
You could certainly say Lolcat is inspired by 1337, and this is evident in the shared (mis)spellings and punctuation peculiarities, but as other posters have mentioned it's more of its own thing. I would say it's typified by certain phrasings (e.g. "I can haz", "Oh hai", etc.) and an emphasis on cutesy/simplistic language.
posted by pravit at 9:23 PM on November 7, 2009
You could certainly say Lolcat is inspired by 1337, and this is evident in the shared (mis)spellings and punctuation peculiarities, but as other posters have mentioned it's more of its own thing. I would say it's typified by certain phrasings (e.g. "I can haz", "Oh hai", etc.) and an emphasis on cutesy/simplistic language.
posted by pravit at 9:23 PM on November 7, 2009
I think the big connection between 1337 and Lolspeak is Jeff K. Back in the old days, leetspeak was actually used by some hackers and BBS users, possibly to get around automated attempts to ban certain topics (such as illegal software sharing). By the time the Internet got popular in the mid-90s though, it was mainly only used by the massive numbers of dumb wannabe hacker kids who were just getting online for the first time. Jeff K was a satire of those kids, so in addition to using leetspeak terms like hax0r, he also made all kinds of general spelling and grammatical errors. Because Jeff K and Something Awful in general were very popular during that time period, a lot of people picked up the meme and have associated leetspeak with simple grammatical and spelling errors like "teh suck" ever since.
Later on, 4chan was started by one of the Something Awful forum goons, and that's where the lolcat meme was born. Lolspeak is supposed to represent the thoughts of cats, who would presumably not be smart enough to use correct English. So the end result is a grammatically incorrect and misspelled version of English, which although different than leetspeak, is similar to the self-parody that leetspeak has become over the years.
posted by burnmp3s at 9:49 PM on November 7, 2009 [6 favorites]
Later on, 4chan was started by one of the Something Awful forum goons, and that's where the lolcat meme was born. Lolspeak is supposed to represent the thoughts of cats, who would presumably not be smart enough to use correct English. So the end result is a grammatically incorrect and misspelled version of English, which although different than leetspeak, is similar to the self-parody that leetspeak has become over the years.
posted by burnmp3s at 9:49 PM on November 7, 2009 [6 favorites]
Best answer: Anil Dash calls it "kitty pidgin" and I tend to as well. That article is now a bit dated, but contains useful links on the bottom and really helps lay out in simple terms why kitty pidgin is fascinating and unique.
It's so cool to me that it's dated, and that kitty pidgin continues to develop. From my corner of the internet, it seems like kitty pidgin has begun to incorporate more l447 terms as both of them have become more mainstream and interpreted by newer nerds, who maybe aren't as family with the history of either and lump them together as the internet-in jokes they both are.
posted by Mizu at 3:09 AM on November 8, 2009
It's so cool to me that it's dated, and that kitty pidgin continues to develop. From my corner of the internet, it seems like kitty pidgin has begun to incorporate more l447 terms as both of them have become more mainstream and interpreted by newer nerds, who maybe aren't as family with the history of either and lump them together as the internet-in jokes they both are.
posted by Mizu at 3:09 AM on November 8, 2009
Ugh, family = familiar; I have got to stop dropping by AskMe at 3am.
posted by Mizu at 3:11 AM on November 8, 2009
posted by Mizu at 3:11 AM on November 8, 2009
Response by poster: awesome! thanks everyone -- I don't know why I didn't think to look for the term in wikipedia!?!
posted by tamarack at 10:21 AM on November 8, 2009
posted by tamarack at 10:21 AM on November 8, 2009
This thread is closed to new comments.
posted by dayintoday at 7:45 PM on November 7, 2009 [3 favorites]