This is great.

Thank you Joshua. It made my night!

-Laz

----- Original Message -----
From: "Joshua Tenpenny" <josh@...>
To: <norse_course@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Tuesday, January 13, 2004 5:04 PM
Subject: Re: [norse_course] Re: Kensington stone


> xigung translated:
> >>1 4m l33t h4x0r 4nd g0t m4d sk1llz ph33r m3!
>
> as:
> > I Am Lex Luthor, and got mAd skills -- Fear me!
>
>
> Close! However, logic cannot explain the cultural elements, and a
> translation based only on one inscription is a tricky thing.
>
> Using the method you developed with the rest of the piece, "l33t h4x0r"
> would be "leet haxor". Clearly nonsense in standard English and all
> 'known' dialects, but examination of further examples would show that
> the phrase is a common self identification in these inscriptions. The
> writers refer to themselves as "l33t h4x0r5" or even more indecipherably
> "1337 #4X0!2$" and the text itself is "l33t5p33k". Further study of
> texts would yield phonetic rules showing that "x" is substituted for "k"
> sounds, '0' is used for a range of vowels, and "h" is occasionally added
> to words starting with a vowel. In this case, however, the "h" is
> clearly of an older derivation, not an addition, and the word is
> properly translated as "hacker".
>
> The meaning of 'l33t' is obviously an adjective, something like "great"
> or "superior", but the exact derivation could remain a mystery unless
> one found a document where an contemporary outsider explained that
> 'leet' is a short form of "elite", and is among this population the most
> common way to extol one's virtues or status in any field.
>
> The careful cultural observer would note that although some words and
> features found their way into more common usage, this dialect was used
> only by a subset of the "Hacker" population, an apparently persecuted or
> at least disliked minority, involved heavily in the illegal trade of
> pornography and proprietary information, theft of communication services
> and electronic funds, and the manufacture of illegal drugs and weapons.
> Even the careful researcher would likely be unable to determine what
> percentage of the highly fantastic claims of this minority culture were
> entirely fictional, created to add to the status to those written about
> rather than to provide accurate documentation for future generations.
>
>
> -- Joshua
>
>
>
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