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(jargon.info)Lamer-speak


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:Crackers, Phreaks, and Lamers:
===============================

From the late 1980s onward, a flourishing culture of local,
MS-DOS-based bulletin boards has been developing separately from
Internet hackerdom.  The BBS culture has, as its seamy underside, a
stratum of `pirate boards' inhabited by {cracker}s, phone phreaks, and
{warez d00dz}.  These people (mostly teenagers running PC-clones from
their bedrooms) have developed their own characteristic jargon,
heavily influenced by skateboard lingo and underground-rock slang.

Though crackers often call themselves `hackers', they aren't (they
typically have neither significant programming ability, nor Internet
expertise, nor experience with UNIX or other true multi-user systems).
Their vocabulary has little overlap with hackerdom's.  Nevertheless,
this lexicon covers much of it so the reader will be able to
understand what goes by on bulletin-board systems.

Here is a brief guide to cracker and {warez d00dz} usage:

   * Misspell frequently.  The substitutions

               phone => fone
               freak => phreak

     are obligatory.
   * Always substitute `z's for `s's.  (i.e. "codes" -> "codez").
   * Type random emphasis characters after a post line (i.e. "Hey
     Dudes!#!$#$!#!$").
   * Use the emphatic `k' prefix ("k-kool", "k-rad", "k-awesome")
     frequently.
   * Abbreviate compulsively ("I got lotsa warez w/ docs").
   * Substitute `0' for `o' ("r0dent", "l0zer").
   * TYPE ALL IN CAPS LOCK, SO IT LOOKS LIKE YOU'RE YELLING ALL THE
     TIME.

These traits are similar to those of {B1FF}, who originated as a
parody of naive BBS users.  For further discussion of the pirate-board
subculture, see {lamer}, {elite}, {leech}, {poser}, {cracker}, and
especially {warez d00dz}.



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