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December 12, 2007
w00t, There It Is
So Merriam-Webster's word of the year is w00t. Sort of uninspiring, right? As in, aren't there thousands of other words that communicate so much more, mean so much more than the gamer battle-cry for "yes! i just killed your guy and i still have seven lives left!"?!?!?
Surely there are more important things that happened in the word world than this, we kept thinking. Surely there were actual words that should have won. "Facebook" was the runner-up at Webster's, while another study tracking this year's word usage pointed to "surge" (as in troop-surge), "hybrid", "climate change" and "Bluetooth" as top contenders.
This whole w00t thing seemed silly to us. But then we remembered the comments here on LAist, where w00t appears almost daily. And the many LAist emails and IM's in which it appears frequently. It takes many forms - from the standard w00t to "wooty woot!" We've even seen "w to the 00t." Really. Our favorite usage of it is verbal, and nearly always ironic.
What does all of this usage and partial usage and ironic usage of w00t mean? That we will one day communicate in binary code? Are we, years after the film's release, doomed to live in the actual matrix...and speak accordingly? Maybe. In a world where "i can haz cheezburger" spoken by an inanimate cat is, admittedly, funny, perhaps binary is our only answer. The only way out of our horrible bludgeoning of the English language.
We are, however, crossing our fingers that next year Merriam-Webster's "word of the year" is actually a word. That doesn't contain numbers. That isn't shorthand for something else. That reflects some of the more critical social issues we face. (We prefer Oxford's "word of the year" locavore, as ridiculous as it sounds, for this very reason.) Or maybe, on the fatalistic flip, the "word" next year will be comprised entirely of numbers. Months later, all of our LAist posts will follow suit. Numbers. Just numbers. As in: 77895 38223333 3433. 593934 348 343443 879813 482 25 1 48946. The first step in the slippery slope toward a binary language. Eeek.
When, if ever, do you say w00t?
Photo via ThinkGeek. Yes, there really are t-shirts.
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"When, if ever, do you say w00t?"
Today, when my bf told me it's the word of the year, and I said what? w00t? really? That's it. He's been saying it all day and I told him that tomorrow, it has to stop.
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10101111000 00000111110101011000 001001
oh whoops, meant to say LOL!!!
no, wait, that's not right either, how about good ol' HA HA HA!!!!
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thank you for dumbing down our language, Webster!
w00t!
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Yes - first all numbers, and then just binary numbers. What would that sound like? Dolphins? I have had fun imagining the post-w00t world. Thank you Webster indeed!
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This reminds me of the time in 2nd grade when I was really excited to learn that if you typed 07734 into a calculator, then turned it upside down, it sort of read "hello."
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Woot is not yet in the Oxford English Dictionary. This means it might exist in spoken English, but it has not yet been documented (and submitted to the OED) in written form from a "published" source (not online).
The OED does contain slang, but Merriam Webster will collect words from speech first, as they publish "college" dictionaries. No judgment here, they just have a different scope.
http://dictionary.oed.com/readers/ if you find "woot" in print somewhere and feel passionately that it should be submitted.
--your resident librarian
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Awesome post. You read my mind, Callie.
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Good god, I have yet to hear a single person say woot. Clearly I've been living under a rock. I know it's an online store though: http://www.woot.com!
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Good god, I have yet to hear a single person say woot. Clearly I've been living under a rock. I know it's an online store though: http://www.woot.com!
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Hey, you guys garnered a mention on a New York Times blog - The Lede: Notes on the News.
Congratulations - you are an inspiration to -ists everywhere!
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i used to say w00t in 7th grade playing counterstrike...it's of the same vintage as LOL
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Joe - Nice catch! Thanks for pointing it out!
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Wow... Loot!