14 DAY TRIAL // This has started to get a little bit too much for me to understand. I understand that new words are being invented daily and I understand why, the world is in a process of continuous evolution and so forth. I even understand how the Internet speech has come to be the need to be, or to think you are a step ahead of others in your "coolness".
But, how a word like "w00t" (spelled with two zeroes instead of the traditional letter "o") manages to bring home - a figure of speech, the Merriam-Webster Inc.'s dictionary Word of the Year is completely incomprehensible for me. There, I've said it.
According to the dictionary, it means "Yay" and it comes following a victory or for no reason at all. Now that's an important word right there! One that has no context really, a shoddy spelling that symbolizes the importance of the Internet in nowadays writing and marks the growing use of numeric keyboards to type words.
It is a part of the so called "l33t" speak, with l33t actually meaning leet which is short for elite. If you can talk using only abbreviations and such newly formed and numeric words, you are the king of the hill. So, don't be scared the next time when you only see a series of characters and numbers on the screen, there's nothing wrong with your part of the brain that is responsible for reading, neither is the message sent in a foreign language. Phrases like "lol, pwning n00bs im uberl33t" have a very deep meaning actually, and if you want to keep up with the times, you'd best start learning these things.
Where does the word come from? Thinkgeek.com gives us the answer for that one: w00t belongs to gamers the world over. It seems to have been derived from the obsolete 'whoot', which essentially is another way to say 'hoot' that itself is a shout or derisive laugh, but others maintain that w00t is the sound several players make while jumping like bunnies in Quake III, referring to a popular video game. Whichever it is, I strongly think that there were other words out there that could have won the award.