Indeed, Steve. To put the point another way, grammar (spolling inc!) should only ever be the nail in the stick, never the stick itself. In other words, if you feel you have a reason to argue with someone, it's an extra spanner in the toolkit, but if it's the reason you're arguing with someone, you probably ought to take a step back, find a mirror, and take a look at yourself!

Doug - Nigel has kindly provided a link. In brief, it is (99% of the time) replacing letters with numbers. C U ltr is txt; str8 i.e. straight is l33t. As a gamer, I use a certain amount of txt myself; gn for goodnight, np for no problem, etc; though I dislike txtspk generally. C U for 'see you' is, to my mind, just being bloody lazy - learn to type, learn to spell, both are useful skills! It usually takes me longer to proof-read; to ensure I'm saying what I want in the way I want to say it, as well as to correct errors; than it does to actually type a message! L33t I detest & won't use at all.

The only genuine reason for using either that I can see ("being in with the cool crowd" is not a genuine reason) is if you are being charged or limited by character count. Since I neither text nor Twit... ;-)