oneof.us

(I know, this is a few days old, wanna fight about it?)

So, the word of the year, according to Merriam Webster, is "w00t"???  Really? Now I’m a frequent user of the word "w00t", although I rarely spell it with zeros, and I’m a daily visitor to the site, http://woot.com, but, the word doesn’t seem to have a whole lot of academic legitimacy, but I suppose that is probably not the criteria for a word to be inducted as the "word of the year".

I read somewhere that "woot" actually is the shortened version of "Wow, loot!" It is/was a frequently uttered phrase for pen and paper Dungeons and Dragons aficionados.  I, on the other hand, use it for more of an understood, lame replacement for another, lame exclamation, "yippee!"  I typically use it in a very monotone voice to enhance the sarcasm behind uttering such a ridiculous phrase.

Over the past few years, online terms/phrases have become the word of the year, "blog" and "podcast" come to mind, and somehow, I see those two as being much more useful and legitimate. They describe meaningful terms that will be used often and by a majority of the populous that use the interwebs. But "w00t", as an interjection, seems like it will remain within the nerd society (to which I’m a card-carrying member).

If MW declared "w00t" as the word of the year, strictly to gain more buzz, well, they’ve succeeded, because not only am I writing about it, but it seems like every other site I’ve read in the past few days has had something to say about it… So, way to go MW, "w00t!"