Merriam-Webster annouced their "Word of the Year" today and would you believe that they are actually taking the idiotic, juvenile, gamer "language" l337-speak seriously? Thank you Kotaku for giving me nightmares.
Yes, that's right. The "Word of 2007" actually has numbers in it.
It's W00t. With zeroes. And essentially boils down to an exclamation of happiness. Webster says it's also an acronym for "we owned the other team" but I have never in my life heard anyone provide that explanation before.
Kristin's mother asked me the other day if I was a gamer. A strange question considering my line of work, but I must say that it's little stories like this that make answering that question in the affirmative all the more difficult. Actually, scratch that. I can't fault gamers for this. After all, they can't help acting their age. Or half of it. No, I blame this on Merriam-Webster. Here's a company specializing in reference books that manages -- err, tries -- to stay relevant in the 21st century in spite of the Internet and what do they do? They puke all over their credibility by making their word of the year a non-word. Yesterday Webster was a household name. A brand you can trust, sort-of-speak. And now?
Let's just say I think they owe the Ebonics people a big apology.
1 comment:
haha. W00t isn't even just gamer speak. 13 year olds use it when they talk on line....awesome
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