The fine hipsters over at Merriam-Webster have decreed that l33t-speak word "w00t", spelled with two zeros instead of the letter O, is the 2007 word of the year.
The company said the word was chosen as the word of the year based on votes from visitors to the Merriam-Webster Web site. While w00t won't be included into a hardcover dictionary yet, the company said it will include the word in its online Open Dictionary.
According to the online definition, w00t is an interjection (try to keep that Schoolhouse Rock song out of your head now) that expresses joy (it could be after a triumph, or for no reason at all); similar in use to the word 'yay'.
I have mixed emotions (semi-w00t?) about the selection of the word. On the one hand, it shows that popular culture has caught up with the online gaming culture and its language quirks. On the other hand, us gamers suddenly don't seem as cool we thought we were. Don't you dare try to take pwn, gratz and kk from us, Merriam-Webster!
The other words that made the top 10 list for Merriam-Webster: facebook (as a verb, as in, "Why haven't you facebooked me yet?"); conundrum, quixotic, blamestorm (sitting around in a group, discussing why a deadline was missed or a project failed, and who was responsible); sardoodledom (mechanically contrived plot structure and stereotyped or unrealistic characterization in drama); apathetic, Pecksniffian (unctuously hypocritical, based on Seth Pecksniff, a character in Charles Dickens' Martin Chuzzlewit), hypocrite, and charlatan.
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Network World's product test editor and one cool dude.
The Leader in Network Knowledge
took long enough
w00t has been around a long time... Is l33t in the dictionary yet?
I remember when "def" went mainstream, rappers held a mock funeral for the word, as that was considered the end of its coolness. Should we do the same for "w00t"?
Jeff Caruso
Network World Site Editor
we forget sometimes
that we're ahead of the curve in terms of a lot of technology terms, interesting to see when the mainstream world catches up to us.
You know we'll have to do a funeral if Jay Leno or Regis ever use the word 'w00t' in a sentence.