w00t
December 12th, 2007
The word of the year as awarded by MW Dictionary is w00t.
I never thought MW would cave in to the pop-culture usage. It derives from leet-speak, mostly.
Massachusetts-based Merriam-Webster Inc. said “w00t” — typically spelled with two zeros — reflects a new direction in the American language led by a generation raised on video games and cell phone text-messaging.
It’s like saying “yay,” the dictionary said.
(SOURCE)
Wow, leetspeak in the news… is it 1996 already? Wait till I tell all the phreakers on my BBS about this!
Seriously, I’m torn between 2 responses to this nonsense. One is “aging, clueless business strives for relevance by pandering to the lowest common denominator- film at 11.”
The other is this notion of a focus group at MW sitting around and planning this as a kind of strategy in an attempt to get all over Digg and such without having to pay for advertising. Maybe the Internet has made me a cynic, but it just seems like everything is a viral marketing ploy these days.