W00t! I'm The Word Of The Year! Merriam-Webster Is Totally l337!

from the m3rr14m-w3b$73r dept

Wed, Dec 12th 2007 9:37am — Dennis Yang

Back in 2001, the folks at the Oxford English Dictionary caused a little stir with they added Homer Simpson's "Doh!" to their dictionary of the English language. Merriam-Webster has upped the ante now by not only adding "w00t" to the dictionary, but choosing it as the 2007 word of the year. Last year, "truthiness" beat out "google" for the honor. When asked about the numerical characters in word, Merriam-Webster John Webster explained that this "is simply a different and more efficient way of representing the alphabetical character." Um, more efficient? Hardly -- w00t is from leet speak, and the orthographic substitutions of numbers for certain letters are intended to make more secure, yet easily remembered words for passwords. Is Merriam-Webster grasping for attention? With traffic on sites like urban dictionary catching up to Merriam-Webster, perhaps they wanted to curry favor with all of the l33t kids.

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Filed Under: dictionary, language
Companies: merriam-webster

39 Comments

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ReallyEvilCanine, 12 Dec 2007 @ 9:54am

Teachers everywhere are crying
Greenpeace's whale-naming contest resulted in "Mr. Splashy Pants". A respected dictionary has just accepted a 1337-5p34|
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Haywood, 12 Dec 2007 @ 10:01am

Just sad, that's all
I saw a list of the added words, I don't know what people will be speaking in the future, but it won't be English, perhaps Ebonics. Ginormous made the list, for Christ's sake. 10 year olds no longer need to improve their skills, the have all they need.
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RevMike, 12 Dec 2007 @ 10:05am

English is not like French
There is no Academy that regulates and defines the language. It grows organically.

The job of a dictionary is to document the language as it exists, not as someone thinks it should be. Various types of slang gain entrance into the dictionary all the time.
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Anonymous Coward, 12 Dec 2007 @ 10:06am

Wrong again, Mike
But seriously, the internet is making people more intelligent. What with all the grammar and spelling skills it teaches.
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Anonymous Coward, 12 Dec 2007 @ 10:06am

Language changes over time. It's a good thing.
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Trolly McTrollstein, 12 Dec 2007 @ 10:08am

it's more efficient because...
... you don't have to use the shift key to make the big letters.
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Greg, 12 Dec 2007 @ 10:13am

Jesus Christ, that's sad.

Do people even use the word "w00t" in a non-ironic way? They're jumping on a retarded bandwagon that isn't even current.
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Just Me, 12 Dec 2007 @ 10:27am

#7
"Do people even use the word "w00t" in a non-ironic way?"

Yes. Online gamers use it all the time as an exclamation of some success or any good thing.

It's no different than "great". Typically used to denote something good, but commonly used sarcastically to denote something not-so-good.
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Whooz on First?, 12 Dec 2007 @ 10:27am

Bekuz I sed so that's y!
Who says the way we write now is the best form of written English? My 6-year old girl, in first grade, is taught to spell phonetically now. Half the words she comes up with are better than our normal written words (i.e. shorter and easy to understand). I know exactly what she has written, even though half the words are spelled "incorrectly."
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Sean, 12 Dec 2007 @ 10:28am

It's not in their online dictionary
Although I see this reported in several news outlets, I can't find the definition on the Merriam-Webster site.
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Adimax, 12 Dec 2007 @ 10:32am

The Fall of Grammar-tron Nazis...
Your daughter is going to be dumb when she grows up.

Unless all the kids are spelling that way now. Weird to wrap my mind around the idea...
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TheDock22, 12 Dec 2007 @ 10:37am

Leet been around for ages
My friends used to speak to me in leet back in elementary school, but I never jumped on that bandwagon. I think it is funny that gamers have suddenly taken it over as "their" language when leet-speak has been around for at least 15 years of my life.
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rEdEyEz, 12 Dec 2007 @ 10:40am

The enablers of low expectation
Can a combination of letters - including numbers, be considered an actual word, or is it "$p@m?"

Is it a verb, adjective, adverb, exclamation?
Can I multiply, add, subtract, divide?

...strange, indeed.
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Shohat, 12 Dec 2007 @ 10:52am

WTF?
Why not WTF?

WTF

Is probably #1 in terms of efficiency. The quantity of untyped text, saved time, so to speak, amounts to millions of lifetimes.
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Keybored, 12 Dec 2007 @ 10:54am

WTF
Is WTF in the dictionary. W00T is a stupid slang word used by very few people. If you don't believe the 'dictionaries' are not trying to define language by choosing one stupid new word over another you are illiterate, inexperienced, innocent, naif, naive, nescient, unconscious, uneducated, unenlightened, uninformed, unknowing, unknowledgeable, unlearned, unlettered, unversed, and/or unwitting.

jackasses
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Gunnar, 12 Dec 2007 @ 11:02am

Re:
Dictionaries record usage, they don't judge the worthiness of words, just their meanings.

I don't think I've ever heard woot used ironically. I've read it used that way, on forums and such, but the people who speak it say it without thought, like they would any other interjection.
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Gunnar, 12 Dec 2007 @ 11:05am

Re: The Fall of Grammar-tron Nazis...
Or she'll use a word processor and chat program with built in dictionary. I'm a copy editor and my spelling is terrible, but pidgin, Firefox and Word all let me know when I've spelled something questionable.
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Anonymous Coward, 12 Dec 2007 @ 11:13am

FTW
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Shohat, 12 Dec 2007 @ 11:31am

Re:
Fuck The What For The Win !
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B, 12 Dec 2007 @ 11:36am

Eh...
I thought kids turning in papers in text-talk was bad, but this is just insane.
I'm ok with people using this kind of language online or on their cell phone to chat fast, but once it's introduced to the dictionary, it's fair using in any conversation.
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Matt, 12 Dec 2007 @ 11:43am

Re: Re:
ummm, it's not F the what, it's F the world...
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Jeff, 12 Dec 2007 @ 11:43am

soo...
what the fuck's next? is merriam-webster going to merge with nonsensicon? are they gonna add beginualize to the dictionary since it was in a simpsons episode and a lot of people have seen it?
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Chris, 12 Dec 2007 @ 12:05pm

Don't forget that dictionaries change the language
Not just by legitimizing new words and forms, but sometimes by actively "standardizing" language. For example, thanks to Noah Webster's original dictionaries, we use "center" and "theater" rather than the English versions of "centre" and "theatre".
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Lord Jackenape, 12 Dec 2007 @ 12:25pm

Re: Don't forget that dictionaries change the lang
For example, thanks to Noah Webster's original dictionaries, we use "center" and "theater" rather than the English versions of "centre" and "theatre".
Bloody Yanks! The proper English spelling of w00t is whooughte.
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Anonymous Coward, 12 Dec 2007 @ 12:25pm

is it actually "W00t!" or "w00t!" or just plain "woot"?
Does case actually matter in this word? Does it have two "0"s or two "o"s (or "O"s)

And think of all the professional scrabble players out there who are going to feel left-out of this "fantastic" new addition of words. WTF!
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Anonymous Coward, 12 Dec 2007 @ 1:04pm

l33t
5W337, 7h12 12 4W50m3
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Anonymous Coward, 12 Dec 2007 @ 1:05pm

Technically it is a more efficient way of representing the alphabetical character, but only within the confines of a cell phone number keypad where you have to hit a button multiple times for a single letter. On any standard keyboard, it is not in any way more efficient.

That being said, I agree that the English language is being destroyed as we speak, and dumb words aren't the half of it. Has anybody else noticed how words like "to, too" and "there, their, they're" and even "lose, loose" are almost never used correctly anymore? I'm even starting to see errors like that in major news articles now. Come on people, it's not that hard to figure out. Quit being so lazy. I am sick of having to interpret the comments from the linguistically-challenged who can't figure out how to use simple words that even a third-grader should know how to use. I think we need to stop and figure out how to use what we've got already before worrying about dumb new words that are nothing more than a fad.
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Fushta, 12 Dec 2007 @ 1:21pm

Another Suggestion for Websters...
Eleventy-Brazilian
Definition: An exaggeratory phrase to mean "a lot of something."
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Anonymous Coward, 12 Dec 2007 @ 2:17pm

Re: WTF
Well someone got out the thesaurus.
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Evil Mike, 12 Dec 2007 @ 2:23pm

Re: WTF
That would be the logical fallacy 'ad hominem'

Let's try it again, this time with a logical argument.
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Evil Mike, 12 Dec 2007 @ 2:25pm

Re:
w00t is an acronym originating in online team-play games, it stands for "we (p)own (the) other team."
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bobo the clown, 12 Dec 2007 @ 4:31pm

Re: English is not like French
You said it best
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Nico, 12 Dec 2007 @ 4:50pm

WTF
No one uses w00t anymore.

Everyone just says pwn or FTW.
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WOOT, 12 Dec 2007 @ 8:54pm

Re: Re:
WOOT
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Zabolyx, 13 Dec 2007 @ 2:17am

Jargon and Slang
This is nothing new. In fact much of the words you speak today are fairly new to the English language.

Computer jargon or slang of the 60's and 70's and even newer are finding themselves in the dictionary. Look up floppy, or CD-ROM. Take sweet or rad for instance. These words change and have new slang meanings that are now in the dictionary.

Sadly the English language allows for many words to have multiple meanings even without counting the slang meanings. That alone can be a very confusing.

I saw an article that some schools are allowing txt spelling in class. BTW they are considering it a new shorthand style. When my dictonary starts listing words like BFF, B4, WTH, WTF and more I think I'll take Latin back up.
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SeanC, 13 Dec 2007 @ 3:02am

Re:
Haven't you heard of T9?
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klaatu62, 17 Dec 2007 @ 5:34am

There should be a limit
There should be a limit to words that can also be pronounced verbally. We are lucky that Prince's unpronouncable symbol didn't make it into the language!

Seriously, yes language grows, and that is good, but there should be a difference between actual growth and trendy gobblediegook. maybe we should add ROFLMAO and CUL8ER
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Logan1337, 20 Dec 2007 @ 1:59pm

@Jeff: "beginualize" isn't a cromulent word, silly.

@anon26: You misspelled 4W350M3
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d4m4s74, 13 Feb 2009 @ 4:39am

Re: The enablers of low expectation
w00t is an exclamation
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