"!337$p34k" Uh I beg your pardon?

Don't fret if you responded that way. Your eyes aren't playing tricks on you. You are still living on Earth, though those highly manipulated letters may seem somewhat alien to you. The bottom line is that you really have to be in sync with the youth today to make any sense of that.

!337$p34k simply represents the term leetspeak, a computer slang, that has been developed in the midst of technological change, in which the writer replaces regular letters with other keyboard characters to form words phonetically.

Trust the adolescents to come up with that. No wonder parents are finding it increasingly difficult to keep up with times, or their children for that matter. Being unable to communicate with their children or effectively understanding them has been a pertinent area of concern for most parents.

Their worries do not come unfounded. Some educators and academics are also concerned that Internet slang like leetspeak are compromising young people's ability to write and communicate well.

Law enforcement agencies and teachers have expressed concern that potential attackers are better equipped to lure their victims to a physical encounter by establishing trust through the use of Internet slang. Predators are able to present themselves as belonging to the same age and peer group as their victims merely by adopting the latest in Internet slang.

On the brighter side, linguists point out that the use of Internet slang "represents a versatility that might be a strength". Other researchers stated that abbreviations and hybrid speech patterns found in online messaging show "an extremely lucid command of the language", and that such perturbations are "a part of the playfulness of the communication".

In any case, it must be noted that all languages go through many transformations, and, perhaps, at some stages function as a way of empowering the disempowered, which is why teenagers are so caught up with this linguistic craze.

In fact, this phenomenon has been so hyped up that even entertainment products are jumping on the bandwagon, using this new-age lingua franca to appeal to teens.

NUMB3RS, a popular television series in America; Se7en, the official title for the movie starring Brad Pitt and Morgan Freeman; and Unan1mous, a reality show on Fox, are just a few examples to begin with.

Hence, it is high time for parents to put aside work and revisit academia. Some fundamental rules to abide by are as follows:

1) The suffix -xor or -zor can be used, like the standard English -er and -or, to derive an agent noun from a verb, such as haxor, meaning one who hacks. The agent noun can be transformed back into a verb, usually with the addition of -ed or -'d, making haxored equivalent to the computer was hacked.

2) Instead of using an s to change a singular noun to a plural noun, the letter z can be used, like skillz rather than skills.

3) A verb may be changed to a noun by adding the suffix -age, or an adjective to a noun with -ness. For instance, the noun of cool is simply coolness.

4) For words ending in -ed, it is common for the e to be dropped.

5) Words ending in -and, -anned, -ant, or a similar sound can be replaced by -&, as in b& instead of banned.

Undeniably, there are lots more terms and vocabulary that parents should get accustomed to so as to keep up with their children. Yet, clichd as it may sound, maintaining a healthy relationship with your family involves much more than crossing the linguistic barrier care for your loved ones matters too.

Leetspeak may be in, but let your heart do most of the talking.

Learn more about this author, Stacy Wong.
Click here to send author comments or questions.

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