Hakspek

2 definitions found

From Jargon File (4.3.1, 29 Jun 2001) [jargon]:

  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 diappeared 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 (27 SEP 03) [foldoc]:

  hakspek
       
           /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          which operated on archaic machines with outdated {operating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)