Internet Speak

[Wallace]

At the risk of appearing to be typing on my C64 while rocking on a chair on my porch and cradling a shotgun, I have to ask why this forum appears to be overrun with strange mutilations of the written language? I'd like to bring your collective attention to the word "to" which seems to have been entirely replaced with "2". Now, I'm not some some kind of grammar Nazi, but seriously, it is one less character and the numeral version is placed on the QWERTY keyboard at the periphery, whereas 't' and 'o' are very close to the usual position of the main typing fingers. It is well known that Humans read in words rather than characters (once they become reasonable literate in any case) so trying to read most of the posts in here is very difficult. Every time I see this strange use of '2' I feel like my eyeballs have been hit sqware in the nyuts. Even the rules of the Linguistic section make extensive use/abuse of this strange dialect.

Generally speaking, these forums are written in full English rather than some kind of 7337 speak, except for this puzzling anomaly. Can any linguistic enthusiasts shed some light as to why? Is this some collective ironic in joke or are you all so used to it (sorry, used 2 it) that you don't even notice???

Edit: oh right, I see what you did there....

[adnil]

I'd like 2 bring you's collective attention 2 the loaf "2" which seems 2 have been entirely replaced with "2".

That's possibly one of the most difficult sentences I've read in a long time...

[poxic]

There is a section at the top of each board that lists announcements. Find the one called "Madness" and it will explain all.

[eSOANEM]

7337 speak,

It's spelt 1337.

OT:

The madness be upon us

[Karkasmolen]

Actually I rather thought it intriguing how everything everyone said became kind of a word puzzle where you had to unravel it based on jokes and context.

Admittedly it does make it kind of annoying to try and get a point across clearly sometimes.

[Grop]

why this forum appears to be overrun with strange mutilations of the written language? I'd like to bring your collective attention to the word "to" which seems to have been entirely replaced with "2".

When did this happen? I didn't notice. Do you have examples? In this forum?

[Drab Emordnilap]

When did this happen? I didn't notice. Do you have examples? In this forum?

Until recently, there was a loaf filter that, among other things, filtered all instances of 'to' to '2'. You can see some examples in the second post in this thread, and compare it to the original post.