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'w00t' Named 2007 Word of the Year 244

Posted by CmdrTaco
from the still-waiting-for-slashdotted-as-a-verb dept.
bukharin writes "'w00t', the "small word that packs a pretty big punch", has been named Word of the Year for 2007 by dictionary gurus Merriam-Webster. Visitors to the Merriam-Webster website were asked to vote for one of 20 commonly searched words and phrases. Facebook was the runner-up. Previously honored geek words include google (runner-up in 2006) and blog (winner in 2004)."
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'w00t' Named 2007 Word of the Year More

'w00t' Named 2007 Word of the Year

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  • What? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Gigiya (1022729) on Wednesday December 12 2007, @09:49AM (#21670481)
    I haven't seen anyone use "w00t" in about three years.

    • Re:What? (Score:5, Funny)

      by Laebshade (643478) <laebshade@gmail.com> on Wednesday December 12 2007, @09:50AM (#21670495)
      ya rly

    • Re:What? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by SatanicPuppy (611928) * <Satanicpuppy@gm[ ].com ['ail' in gap]> on Wednesday December 12 2007, @09:53AM (#21670517) Journal
      It's definitely on the decline in nerd culture. I guess the rest of the world is picking through our discards.

      • Re:What? (Score:5, Funny)

        by Etrias (1121031) on Wednesday December 12 2007, @10:10AM (#21670711)
        It's hard to see it in any context but geek culture. I can't imagine that many people will even think it means anything other than some other misspelling.

        Ladies and gentlemen, Merriam-Webster has officially jumped the shark.

        • Re:What? (Score:5, Insightful)

          by Elemenope (905108) on Wednesday December 12 2007, @10:47AM (#21671237)

          A friend of mine's license plate is w00t. And he's a geek but by no means a cripplingly stunted one. Then again, the fact that the license plate was available says loads about just how important this word is to geek culture...not very.

          re: Dictionaries jumping the shark...no kidding. Then again, dictionaries aren't supposed to be up to date so much as a conservative normalizing force in language usage. IIRC, the first dictionaries were intended to regularize spelling variations, more so than be comprehensive catalogues of words in usage.

        • Re:What? (Score:4, Funny)

          by runlvl0 (198575) on Wednesday December 12 2007, @12:13PM (#21672757) Homepage Journal

          It's hard to see it [w00t] in any context but geek culture.

          I don't know, I stay up most every night until 12:01 waiting for the next w00t [woot.com]. When there's a woot-off [wikipedia.org], forget about it - I'm up all night!

          Of course, my wife has observed that I might have a w00t *problem*.

          Wowwee Roboquad Interactive Robot, LeakFrog 2-Pack,Micro Remote Control Helicopter, Xact Seven Mile Professional Two-Way Radios, Jabra C820s Noise Canceling Headphones, Microsoft Zune 30GB Digital Media Player, SanDisk Sansa e250 2GB Media Player, Saitek A100 MySpkr Personal Stereo Speaker, Netgear 802.11g Wireless USB 2.0 Adapter - 2 Pack, Nyko Air Flo EX USB Controller for PC/MAC - 2 Pack, Xact 2-Way FRS/GMRS Wristwatch Radios, Pinnacle DVD Maker Deluxe, USB Missile Launcher, Sony NW-S703 1GB MP3 Player with Noise Cancelling Headphones, Chaucer's Mead Trio, HealthPro Wrist Blood Pressure Monitor, Gourmet Coffee Cafe Single Serving Coffeemaker with Free Coffee, Sling Media SlingBox Classic, Microsoft Streets and Trips 2006 w/ GPS Locator Hardware, Netgear 108Mbps Wireless USB 2.0 Adapter, iRobot Roomba 4296 Remote Scheduler Robotic Vacuum, Siemens Bluetooth Car Kit

          I suspect that I may have been 0wn3d.

      • Re:What? (Score:4, Funny)

        by Billosaur (927319) * <wgrother&optonline,net> on Wednesday December 12 2007, @10:30AM (#21670991) Journal

        Word!!!

      • They were discussing this on the Radio this morning. Most of the DJs never heard of "W00t" and the one who did thought it was related to online gambling. That's the REAL WTF.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by iapetus (24050)
      So? When was the last time you saw anyone use 'sardoodledom' (one of the other nominees)?

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Mr Z (6791)

        The last time? I haven't seen it used in a sentence for the first time. (Mentioning it by reference doesn't count.)

      • Re:What? (Score:5, Funny)

        by Palpitations (1092597) * on Wednesday December 12 2007, @11:57AM (#21672443)

        So? When was the last time you saw anyone use 'sardoodledom' (one of the other nominees)?
        That's quite a conundrum. I'm not trying to start a blamestorm here, but it appears you may be an apathetic charlatan. Sardoodledom.

        Sorry, someone had to do it (w00t!).
    • What's even more ridiculous is that it's a backronym, where the definition is invented after the word is made up. "We owned the other team?" That's the definition. I always thought it to more of a general saying of approval or celebration.

      Now all of these posers will have our secret geek password. I vote we get another one. Goatse, anyone?
      • Yeah it means something like 'great' or 'woo' (which it's probably historically related to).

        'we owned the other team' doesn't even make sense in the context that it's used.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by dlZ (798734)
        What's even more ridiculous is that it's a backronym, where the definition is invented after the word is made up. "We owned the other team?" That's the definition. I always thought it to more of a general saying of approval or celebration.

        I remember using 'w00t' in IRC something like 15 or more years ago. I'm sure I wasn't the first. I don't even remember the last time I used it, but when I did, it was definitely being used as a way of saying 'woo!' or 'yay!' and had nothing to do with "We owned the o

    • Re: (Score:2, Funny)

      by mecenday (1080691)
      Yeah, people have just been so bummed since Bush was reelected.
    • It's definitely older than that. I remember it being a fad while I was playing Quake 2... before Quake 3 came out.

      On a side note, is it sad that I am using Quake releases as a measure of time?

  • What??? (Score:5, Funny)

    by tritonman (998572) on Wednesday December 12 2007, @09:49AM (#21670483)
    Who still uses w00t? I haven't used that since like 1998... What's the PHRASE of 2007, "All your base are belong to us?"

  • That is quite exciting (Score:5, Funny)

    by eln (21727) on Wednesday December 12 2007, @09:52AM (#21670513) Homepage
    I am elated by this news. I feel a great sense of triumph that this word has received such an honor. If only there were some word that could express my happiness at this victory for geek-kind, perhaps a word with numbers substituted for letters somewhere.

    Oh well, I guess I'll just go with "yay".
  • I thought the correct representation was w00t, with 'zeroes' and not capital O's, as in wOOt.

  • Veni, Vidi, Vici (Score:5, Funny)

    by syntaxeater (1070272) on Wednesday December 12 2007, @09:55AM (#21670549) Homepage
    can now be summarized as "mount, grep, w00t"

  • google (Score:4, Interesting)

    by superwiz (655733) on Wednesday December 12 2007, @09:55AM (#21670553) Journal
    The only reason google lost is because the criterion was the most "commonly searched for words". If someone can already search, how likely are they to search for "google"?

  • I can just see the future... (Score:5, Funny)

    by east coast (590680) on Wednesday December 12 2007, @09:57AM (#21670569)
    Word of the year in 2012? Über.

    2013: Slashvertisement
    2014: fucktard
    2015:1337

  • WTF? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Cleon (471197) <cleon42@yah o o .com> on Wednesday December 12 2007, @09:57AM (#21670581) Homepage
    Leet-speak from 2001 gets named "word of the year" in 2007? How does that work?

    Next year I suppose it'll be "pwned."

    £4m3.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Otter (3800)
      Looking at the runners-up, we have "conundrum" dated to 1645, "apathetic" from 1744 and "hypocrite" from ancient Greece. Novelty doesn't seem to be a factor. And how often was "sardoodledom" used in 2007?!?

      As for worst word/phrase of 2007, "bricked" and "SKU" rank high, but nothing inspires the urge to strangle like "__? Not so much."

    • Re:WTF? (Score:5, Funny)

      by Anne_Nonymous (313852) on Wednesday December 12 2007, @10:10AM (#21670729) Homepage Journal
      So you're saying the "word of the year" competition is m00t?

    • Re:WTF? (Score:5, Informative)

      by Jugalator (259273) on Wednesday December 12 2007, @10:15AM (#21670799) Journal
      They must just now be discovering Microsoft's leet speak tutorial archives [archive.org].

      Microsoft got boring though, now that page simply redirects here [microsoft.com] instead.

      It's interesting to follow the revision histories on that page on archive.org. It started out pretty much as my first link, then they removed the "illegal activities" section probably out of political correctness and not wanting to damage their reputation, and now there's no info on leetspeak at all.
    • 2001? w00t (and w00+) have been around much, much longer than 2001, you n00b ;)
    • I vote to make WTF the abbreviation of the year. Now I'm off to RTFA.
  • Following "w00t" in the list of most searched-for terms were such terms as "clearasil" and "cheetos".

  • answer me these questions 3 (Score:5, Funny)

    by Gearoid_Murphy (976819) on Wednesday December 12 2007, @10:02AM (#21670635)
    w00t is your name? w00t is your favourite color? w00t is the air speed velocity of an unladen swallow!!!!!

    • Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

      by securityfolk (906041)
      African or European?
    • No. No. No.
      Although, technically, that last one was not a question, it was wrong. W00t is definitely not the air speed velocity of an unladen swallow, European, African or otherwise.

  • At least it's not... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by foniksonik (573572) on Wednesday December 12 2007, @10:07AM (#21670679) Homepage Journal

    Bling
    Jiggy
    Fresh
    Bad
    Gnarly
    Dude

    or any of the popular slang words from our childhood... of course those were all 3-5 years old by the time they reached nationwide popularity too..

    It does represent the shifting focus of teen age pop culture however... surfer, skater, rocker, DJ Mixer, hip-hopper, Rap Star, Nerd, Hacker

    What's next? ask the kids... they know.

  • These guys will be thrilled (Score:3, Interesting)

    by cybermage (112274) on Wednesday December 12 2007, @10:11AM (#21670735) Homepage Journal
    woot! [woot.com]

    For those not familiar with the site, they sell one product a day, until it's gone, at a deep discount. Today (12/13/2007) it's a NavMan GPS for $149.

    I hit the site every day.

  • It's the end of the world (Score:3, Funny)

    by PhuCknuT (1703) on Wednesday December 12 2007, @10:13AM (#21670767) Homepage
    I believe this is the first sign of the apocalypse.

  • What about this word of the year? (Score:3, Funny)

    by Jozxyqk (16657) on Wednesday December 12 2007, @10:14AM (#21670779)
    09 f9 11 02 9d 74 e3 5b d8 41 56 c5 63 56 88 c0

  • You'd think that... (Score:5, Informative)

    by PinkyDead (862370) on Wednesday December 12 2007, @10:15AM (#21670793) Journal
    Merriam-Webster's word of the year would be in their dictionary.

    http://www.m-w.com/dictionary/w00t [m-w.com]. Odd that.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by SL Baur (19540)
      No doubt an editorial oversight, I'm sure they'll get around to it. I've seen it used often enough in WoW and its forums that I'm not surprised. As was explained to me long ago (with regards to how it was now optional to put a comma after "and" in a list), today's slang and grammatical errors can become tomorrow's official usage if done long enough by enough people.

      They are constantly expanding Philippine English with words of the year http://newsinfo.inquirer.net/breakingnews/infotech/view_article.php?ar [inquirer.net]

  • Merriam-Webster needs to leave the house more... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Loosifur (954968) on Wednesday December 12 2007, @10:20AM (#21670839)
    Pecksniffian? Pecksniffian was in the running??

    Seriously???

  • Etymology (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Björn (4836) on Wednesday December 12 2007, @10:24AM (#21670887)
    The Etymology according to the wiktionary [wiktionary.org]

    Of uncertain origin; theories include:

    • an acronym from "we own the other team";
    • an onomatopoeia representing the sound of capture sirens from online capture the flag games;
    • a blend of wow and loot;
    • a leetspeak mutation of whoo, what or root;
    • a corruption of root, shouted by hackers when they obtain root-level access in a targeted system.
    • EQ made it popular but it was around before then.

      My thought is it started because of popular songs that had a similar sounding word:
      Whoop/Whoot/Whoomp there it is...
      Whoop/Whoot/Whoomp there it is...


      Since it was hard to tell what word they were really saying some heard it as "whoot" and it took off from there. And made it's way to geek culture eventually winding up as:

      Druid: W00T!
      Ranger: ?
      Druid: DING!
      Ranger: grats

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Emnar (116467)
        I concur with this. I was in #doom in EFnet around 1994 when people started saying "whoomp" all the time because of that song. At the same time, there were references to "r00ting" boxes. "Whoomp" became "woo" became "w00" became "w00t".

        I'm not claiming it happened solely in this channel, but that was definitely when the word was getting off the ground.

        This "We own the other team" nonsense is definitely a backronym. When the word first appeared, you couldn't even play team deathmatch in online games.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by SL Baur (19540)

      The Etymology according to the wiktionary.

      W00t! Never heard of that one before. I'll have to check it out.

      Of the possible etymologies, the one I encountered on the WoW forums was the first one:

      an acronym from "we own the other team";

      although

      a leetspeak mutation of whoo, what or root;

      makes sense too.

      I use it due to my own frustration over the perversion of the once honorable term "hacker". If you can't beat them, join them.

      -sb ("Miskol me when you're ready to go down, let's do lunch")

    • Re: (Score:2, Informative)

      by Indefinite, Ephemera (970817)
      'The Lexicographer's Rules' has some comments on the etymology: http://www.doubletongued.org/index.php/grantbarrett/the_real_history_and_origin_of_woot_and_w00t/ [doubletongued.org]

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by fotbr (855184)
      also a combination of "wonderful loot"
  • I don't know about you, but I first saw w00t circa 1990 on efnet #hack... didnt he have an account on upt.org?

  • Mmmkay... (Score:4, Interesting)

    by tomzyk (158497) on Wednesday December 12 2007, @10:29AM (#21670977) Homepage Journal
    From the article:

    Thousands of you took part in the search for Merriam-Webster's Word of the Year for 2007, and the vast majority of you chose a small word that packs a pretty big punch. The word you've selected ...
    Um... so this word was selected by a "vast majority" of the "thousands" that participated in selecting the Word of the Year.

    Does anyone else think that this was just a joke played by some highschool kids saying that they own your website? The only reason "pwned" (or any variation of it) wasn't used is because it would be too obvious that scriptkiddies rigged your election.
  • I've also seen woot as an acronym for "(i) Want One Of Those", as in Woot.Com [woot.com] and the more interesting iWoot.com [iwoot.com], which is kind of a british ThinkGeek.
  • For awhile any website that asked for a e-mail that really did not need it. I used the e-mail address woot@woot.com, I felt bad once I discovered woot.com was actually a website, and the amount of spam that I know have going to them.
  • Take a look at words like hypocrite, conundrum, quixotic; none of these words is current. It would appear that voters didn't care if a word was actually USED in 2007, just that they liked the word and thought it deserved mention. Pecksniffian dates as far back as 1894.
  • The day the language died.
  • Some of the internet-induced changes to language are cheeky and fun, but some are ominous. I remember how horrible it was the first time I heard "rape" being used as an analogy for "pwn." At the time I was going out with a girl who was a rape counselor, so maybe I was hyper-sensitive at the time. But, what really disturbed me was how even knowing how I felt about that usage, I started to use the word in that context myself. I wonder how such a change in language might impact the real-world offense. Do
  • I think there's one more word [youtube.com] that should be considered. ;)
  • This article [doubletongued.org] claims that w00t originated in the dance scene of the early 90s.

    The story of woot, as we know it, is simple. There were two similar songs on the charts that year. In April "Whoot There It Is" by 95 South (Ichiban Records) was the number seven best-selling song in Central Florida, according, to the Orlando Sentinel. "Whoomp! (There It Is)," by Tag Team (Life Records) out of Atlanta showed up at number 15 on Billboard's R&B singles 27 May 1993 and stayed for 45 weeks on the Billboard top 1

  • Language issues. (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Ungrounded Lightning (62228) on Wednesday December 12 2007, @01:48PM (#21674463) Journal
    Last year I attended a conference. woot.com was one of the sponsors. At the closing ceremony they passed out some swag from that company to the attendees - in a container boldly labeled with the company logo.

    When I got home and she saw it my wife was ROTFL.

    She's one of the couple hundred remaining speakers of the west-coast American Indian trade jargon. And it seems that, in that language, the word for the male organ is (approximately) WOOT-`let.

    Shades of 18th century viagra ads.

"Intelligence without character is a dangerous thing." -- G. Steinem