They're getting a little bandwagony with these words of the year lately. I'm with the prof who thought this years word would never make it to common vernacular.

...what, not "waterboarding"? Or anything more relevant to what actually went on this year?

There is incredible w00tness on the editorial board of Merriam-Webster.

This annoyed me:

"It's amusing, but it's limited to a small community and unlikely to spread and unlikely to last," said Metcalf, an English professor at MacMurray College in Jacksonville, Ill.

As I just said to The Boyfriend: You, Mr. Metcalf, are limited to a small community and unlikely to spread and unlikely to last. You, Mr. Metcalf, teach at some place called MacMurray College. Does anyone really care what you have to say? No? I didn't think so.

Also, w00t has lasted for how many years now? It may not last forever, but it's as linked to the web generation as "hep" or "bee's knees" or other words and phrases may have been to others.

/me gets off high horse.

And who the hell actually still uses "truthiness" or "blamestorming"? Whereas w00t comes up in daily converstation at chez R.Q.Einstein.

Woot? I mean word of the year 2000 maybe. ya know back when odd Todd was using it. For 2007 I'd vote for waterboarding too.

I also find it pretty dated. Not that people don't still use it... just - word of the year for 2007? Really?

"W00t" was among 20 nominees in a list of the most-searched words in Merriam-Webster's online dictionary.

I find this rather bizarre.

Anyway... WHUFFLES IN 2008!!!!!!!! w00t!

I can't remember when or where I read it, but I'd seen that w00t was a 'leet derivative of "weet". The "word" weet was used in early gaming for the same meaning as w00t, but you could spell it with one hand (the left) after you'd fragged someone. The right hand was firmly anchored to the arrow keys as you'd still have to be dodging enemy fire at that point. At a guess, I'd assume it'd be deathmatching in DOOM or Quake or an earlier game like that. (See definition #7.) I'm pretty sure I saw w00t used over ten years ago on hacker sites that I visited, and perhaps earlier than that on BBS's. Someone needs to get hep to the lingo, faster-like.

""W00t" was among 20 nominees in a list of the most-searched words in Merriam-Webster's online dictionary."

Who is looking for W00t on Merriam-Webster's online dictionary?

Those who have missed the last 15 years or so...

topped all other terms in the Springfield-based dictionary publisher's online poll

Ah, it's the Mr Splashy Pants of words.

What arsey said. And taz. Hey whatever happened with Mr Splashy Pants?

The 2008 word will be 'drawdown'.

w00t is one of my favorite words, but if it accepted into the dictionary, I'll have to find something new.

The 2008 word has to be "vajayjaycation".

For chewatadistance and all those concerned with the fate of Mr Splashy Pants: it is official.

The local commuter rag had a laughably lame article about this yesterday, proving that w00t is not yet mainstream enough for any journalist on their staff to have any idea what it really is about or any concept of 1337-speak at all. I read it and LOLd ;-)