Netspeak isn’t cool. Leetspeak isn’t cool. Only stupid skiddies (That’s script kiddies to the uninitiated) talk like that.

I may just be a kid, but I know that there’s nothing cool about ‘tlKiN lyKe dIs!!!!!!!!!!!!!!’

Sigh.

- Sarah

Netspeak? “Nitspeak”. Holy decoder ring, Batman! Is the Internet destined to become the cybertower of babble (Babel)? Blogs will become bogs. Search engines will become clueless (Valley Girls rule, again). Verbal abuse takes on a whole new meaning.

Now the sermon. The Internet once had the noble purpose of expanding knowledge and understanding. Open-source methodology, intelligent beings writing (yes, writing!) intelligibly, publicly and privately funded web sites, intuitive software, voice recognition, character recognition…the list goes on…have enabled everyman and, to be pc, everywoman, access to the riches formerly available only to the gifted wealthy and educated. What gives? Netspeak may be satisfying to those who use it, however, they may as well place a barrel over their heads to capture the magic of their empty thoughts. Lost in translation, eh? It’s ironical that the language historian at the University of Wales is a stong advocate of Netspeak, in view of Microsoft finally embracing Welsh in its language database coding. Robby the Robot once memorably said, “It does not compute.”

Respectfully,

Richard H. Klawitter