from
Jargon File (4.4.4, 14 Aug 2003)
hakspek
/hak'speek/, n.
A shorthand method of spelling found on many British academic bulletin
boards and {talker system}s. Syllables and whole words in a sentence
are replaced by single ASCII characters the names of which are
phonetically similar or equivalent, while multiple letters are usually
dropped. Hence, `for' becomes `4'; `two', `too', and `to' become `2';
`ck' becomes `k'. "Before I see you tomorrow" becomes "b4 i c u
2moro". First appeared in London about 1986, and was probably caused
by the slowness of available talker systems, which operated on archaic
machines with outdated operating systems and no standard methods of
communication.
Hakspek almost disappeared after the great bandwidth explosion of the
early 1990s, as fast Internet links wiped out the old-style talker
systems. However, it has enjoyed a revival in another medium -- the
Short Message Service (SMS) associated with GSM cellphones. SMS sends
are limited to a maximum of 160 characters, and typing on a cellphone
keypad is difficult and slow anyway. There are now even published
paper dictionaries for SMS users to help them do hakspek-to-English
and vice-versa.
See also {talk mode}.
from
The Free On-line Dictionary of Computing (8 July 2008)
hakspek
<jargon> /hak'speek/ A shorthand method of spelling found on
many British academic bulletin boards and {chat} systems.
Syllables and whole words in a sentence are replaced by single
{ASCII} characters the names of which are phonetically similar
or equivalent, while multiple letters are usually dropped.
Hence, "for" becomes "4"; "two", "too", and "to" become "2";
"ck" becomes "k". "Before I see you tomorrow" becomes "b4 i c
u 2moro". First appeared in London about 1986, and was
probably caused by the slowness of available {talk} systems,
which operated on archaic machines with outdated {operating
systems} and no standard methods of communication. Has become
rarer since.
See also {chat}, {B1FF}, {ASCIIbonics}.
[{Jargon File}]
(1998-01-25)