Confessing Evangelical

Those of you who (like me) find themselves baffled by the use of "w00t!!! I pwnZ U! lol! 11!!!"-type gibberish from such youngsters as Josh S, Chris Williams and, um, Pr Joel Humann, will be delighted to discover that Microsoft has stepped into the breach, with "A parent's primer to computer slang". Any resemblance to a particularly starchy 1950s guide to "the hep-talk of groovy teens and their beat music, daddio" is entirely coincidental:

While it's important to respect your children's privacy [Do try to keep a straight face there at the back], understanding what your teenager's online slang means and how to decipher could be important in certain situations and as you help guide their online experience. While it has many nicknames, information-age slang is commonly referred to as leetspeek, or leet for short.

Some of the helpful tips include "Numbers are often used as letters", "Non-alphabet characters can be used to replace the letters they resemble", "Letters can be substituted for other letters that may sound alike" ("for example, leetspeekers might refer to their computer '5x1llz' (skills)"), "Rules of grammar are rarely obeyed", "Mistakes are often left uncorrected" and "The suffix "0rz" is often appended to words for emphasis or to make them plural".

Read the whole thing. It (ahem) "roxx0rs", and will assist you in feeling less like a "n00b" (bearing in mind that "some leetspeekers view 'n00b' as an insult and 'newbie' as an affectionate term for new users").