l33tspeak For Parents By Microsoft

An anonymous reader writes "Microsoft has published A parent's primer to computer slang where !337$p34k is explained to the uninitiated. Expect to see a l33t-localized version of Windows XP soon." They also have a wonderful guide to the tactics of a griefer. "Honey, we're getting worried that you may be 0wning newbz. We need to talk..."

Comments

Re:More useful than most

[dougmc]

It's like they actually kinda get it.

They actually do seem to get it. It was a well written article (and the one on dealing with griefers is good too) -- and while we make fun of it, I can certainly see how some parents who don't know much about that there intra-web could find it to be very useful.

Compared to, say, http://www.pcworld.com/howto/article/0,aid,88686,p g,2,00.asp, where they include 'kiss' as 'keep it simple stupid'. Have you ever seen anyone actually use that in chat?

I have, yes. Of course, it's more of a technical term than pwn3d. `KISS' has been around for a lot longer than l33tspeak.

Another good (i.e. amusing) article is this one -- this slang I've generally not seen, but I guess I'm not a 15 year old girl pretending to be 25 on AIM either. But while I'd not be fooled by strange abbreviations, I realize that others might. Fortunately, my kids are still a bit over a decade away from being 15, so I've got some time to not pick up the new lingo.