L33t L1ng0 and Letters 2 Numbers

I am not quite sure how Leet Lingo and Letters 2 Numbers can be contrasted against another. Is it:

1. the amount of substituted letters? If so, at what point does Letters 2 Numbers become Leet Lingo?
2. In Leet Lingo the numbers are spelled like the letters they replace (e.g. n1gth) while in Letters 2 Numbers the numbers are spelled out (e.g. "n8"). If so, there would be alot of misuse including the trope image.

Edited by eroock on Sep 16th 2018 at 1:49:02 PM

I think it has something to do with context? Leet Lingo is in an online context and is used to show that the character is a gamer or denizen of the net. Whereas Letters 2 Numbers doesn't have that. Also, Leet Lingo tends to be for longer phrases or written dialog, while Letters 2 Numbers tends to be used more for titles and the like.

Edited by naturalironist on Sep 16th 2018 at 8:49:39 AM

Fair enough. What confuses me most is that both pages refer to chatspeak as part of the trope. Like the fourth paragraph of Letters 2 Numbers. Using stuff like "Be 4" in a written monologue is more likely to exemplify Leet Lingo than Letters 2 Numbers. Perhaps the description should be tuned to not go overboard with the misleading "self demonstration" of letters to contract words.

The way I understand them, Leet Lingo is a supertrope to Letters 2 Numbers, since the latter will always be an example of the former (but not the other way around).

Letters 2 Numbers is also generally much less dense in its application, although I find that's more a tendency than a definition. In the same vein, I don't think Leet Lingo is necessarily as dense and obtuse as possible. That's just a "but more so" detail. It doesn't stop being Leet Lingo just because it's not all that dense and incomprehensible.

Leet generally replaces letters with numbers the way they look like, not the way they're read as, unlike Letters Two Numbers.

"345y" reads "easy" according to leet, and "three-four-five-why" according to the latter trope.

Besides, leet speak also includes symbols like @ or #.

^ That's not how Letters 2 Numbers is usually applied. Take e.g. the trope image. According to your definition, it would read Fant-Four-stic but in actuality it replaces A with 4 which is no different from the non-chatspeak variant of Leet Lingo.

I could go with the definition that both tropes are similar (both are used for contractions as well as letter replacements) but are used in different context (written longer communication versus single names) which makes Letters 2 Numbers a toned down version of Leet Lingo. Too bad that didn't come out for me in the descriptions.

Edited by eroock on Sep 18th 2018 at 1:05:55 PM