w00t Takes Its Rightful Place Next To Truthiness

Oh, what a year it's been! We've seen the rise of some empires and watched others crumble, we've seen the exultation of companies and the criticism of others, and we've seen new words take form to better describe ourselves and the world around us. It has been a grand year, that can't be denied.

In it's annual ode to the world's euphemisms and colloquialisms, Merriam-Webster recently released (and subsequently ranked) its list of top words for 2007. Although 20 contenders emerged, only one came out victorious, bathing in the misery of the "loser" words, including the runner-up word, Facebook (used as a verb meaning to find, message, or friend someone via Facebook). So which word of 2007 was worthy of taking a place in the etymology lexicon along side Truthiness? None other than the geek-tastic w00t!!

That's right, w00t is the word of the year for 2007. w00t!!! For those uninitiated in the world of "l33t" (leet... elite) speak, w00t is a word of jubilation, typically used to celebrate a victory. Although not technically from 2007, it apparently gained enough momentum throughout the year (no doubt propelled by World of Warcraft and Xbox Live) to hit the mainstream and become common vernacular.

While I find the idea of w00t being the word of the year cool, I kind of want to keep it firmly entrenched in the nerd/geek culture. We created and propagated the word, now give it back! I'm just not sure how I would react if my boss proclaimed "w00t" after disclosing this past quarter’s profitability...

"w00t" crowned word of year by U.S. dictionary [Yahoo! News]
[image via: Think Geek]