Merriam-Webster's word of '07: 'w00t'

[DarkSign]

You've got to be f**king kidding me.

Dumbass article about the decline of western civilization.

Has MW fallen this far? Would Webster's sink to this? Are we out of meaningful dialog as a society at this point?

[schild]

I think it's awesome.

[MrHat]

I don't think it's a problem really.

Language and speech evolves with the ages too.  No reason not to include it.

Although, word of the year? Isn't this like 10 years old?

[Bunk]

I just find the idea sad, because until reading that article, I can't ever recall seeing it spelt with zeros. If you are going to include a l33t word, use l33t.

I also find it amusing that l33t makes it by the spellchecker here.

[HaemishM]

W00t being the word of the year isn't depressing so much as "facebook" used as a verb getting runner up.

DIE FACEBOOK DIE DIE DIE. 

[Righ]

I'd be be interested to see their entry for the word's etymology. They seem to associate it with gamer culture, which is fair for its current use, but to my knowledge it was first used as an exclamation of happiness when one 'got root' cracking Unix boxes back in the early 80s.

[Hoax]

w00t was en vogue back in the fucking 90's we used to say it alot just before and during Tribes1.  Even I haven't used it since I quit WoW the first time, which was like two years ago.  Kids don't use it either, I haven't heard anyone say it in all my travels through various f2p young playerbase KMMO's.

I always prefered w00p personally, but I think this is cool.  Sarchasm would have been better I guess, but either way I'll take this over fucking facebook/myspace slang.  Or some web2.0 jargon fucktarditry.

[lamaros]

Center
Color
etc etc

Webster has already butchered the language, why would you care about this?

[BigBlack]

W00t being the word of the year isn't depressing so much as "facebook" used as a verb getting runner up.

DIE FACEBOOK DIE DIE DIE. 

What's wrong with Facebook, exactly?  MySpace is a shithole that I occasionally use to look up friends that didn't go to college, and the annoying apps in Facebook can be turned off lickety-split.  Between Facebook for the general social-networking stuff and seeing what your old chums are up to, and LinkedIn for maintaining a professional network, what more do you need?

Also, I logged into F13 just to post this article, only to be beaten to the punch.

[HaemishM]

Facebook = MySpace = Web 2.0 Douchey Social Networking Trendiness

[geldonyetich2]

Too much free time leads to online social butterfly syndrome, and you know how much God hates that.

[HaemishM]

Idle hands spend time at the genitals. 

[caladein]

Center
Color
etc etc

Webster has already butchered the language, why would you care about this?

Just be glad we don't spell "tongue" in a sensical fashion like, I don't know... "tung" like he was going for.

That said, being waist-deep in ancient literature this semester for unknown reasons... I fully embrace language changing over time and welcome our new ADD-striken TL;DR Overlords.

[Lt.Dan]

El-oh-el gets my vote for next year.

[Xuri]

Strange. My 'w00t's have always meant something else for me. Like, for instance...

w00t? (Huh? Wha? I'm bobbin. Are you my mother?)
w00t!? (Holy mother of god. What the fuck just happened?)
w00t! (Wow, something completely random and not really meaningful in any way just took place! I didn't understand it but it was awe-inspiring. Sorta.)
w00t... (You're joking, right? Pull the other one, it has bells...)
w00t w00t w0...never mind, I don't use this one

[geldonyetich2]

If ow can be in the dictionary, then we might as well add w00t as well.  Really, any word that becomes widespread enough eventually snakes its way into English - we're not language puritans.