Merriam-Webster users pick w00t as word of the year

Stephen Withers
Wednesday, 12 December 2007 11:21

Your IT - Home IT

A user poll conducted by the Merriam-Webster online dictionary has chosen w00t as 2007's word of the year. And there we were, thinking that l33t sp34k was passé...

Defined in the Open Dictionary as an interjection "expressing joy (it could be after a triumph, or for no reason at all); similar in use to the word 'yay'", w00t has spread from the online gaming culture.

Its origin is said to be an acronym for "we owned the other team", but that  has the ring of a false etymology.

Similarly, the suggestion that replacing letters with numbers (w00t rather than woot) makes it quicker to type on a numeric keypad doesn't hold up as unless a phone is expecting numeric input, it is necessary to press a key more times to register a digit than any of the letters.

We are tempted to suggest that the electronic equivalent of ballot-stuffing took place, but back in 2005, w00t managed third place in a Merriam-Webster survey of favourite non-words. It's hard to say whether it really is popular, or if a devoted (and possibly misguided) few went to a lot of trouble.

Previous Merriam-Webster words of the year include truthiness, integrity, blog and democracy.