SPRINGFIELD, Mass. — Expect cheers among hardcore online game enthusiasts when they learn Merriam-Webster’s Word of the Year. Or, more accurately, expect them to “w00t.”
“W00t,” a hybrid of letters and numbers used by gamers to express happiness or triumph, topped all other terms in the dictionary publisher’s online poll for the word that best sums up 2007.
Merriam-Webster’s president, John Morse, said “w00t” blends whimsy and new technology.
“It shows a really interesting thing that’s going on in language. It’s a term that’s arrived only because we’re now communicating electronically with each other,” Morse said.
Gamers commonly substitute numbers and symbols for the letters they resemble, Morse says, creating what they call “l33t speak” — that’s “leet” when spoken, short for “elite” to the rest of the world.
The 2006 pick, “truthiness,” also has its roots in pop culture,popularized by Comedy Central satirical political commentator Stephen Colbert.
Some also-rans in the 2007 list: the use of “facebook” as a verb; and “blamestorm,” a meeting in which mistakes are aired and fingers are pointed.
