Woot!
My daughter Katie has been saying ‘Woot‘ a lot recently. Confused at first, I’ve learned it’s a good thing. A positive exclamation. An interjection! I thought it was something unique to her and her friends, but as my friend, Chuq Yang pointed out in his blog, Merriam-Webster included ‘Woot’ among their top ten Favorite Words (That Are Not in the Dictionary). The Urban Dictionary has 53 definitions of ‘woot’. I have tried to start using it, but I think Katie’s embarrassed when I do and I’d hate to be responsible for ruining this non-word for her.
There’s another bit of evolutionary language that we’ve watched spread into common usage among our children and their friends; versing. They have taken the preposition versus, and turned it into a verb. Now I’m no anal-grammarian or anything (I just had to look preposition up, I sure don’t remember it among my Schoolhouse Rock favorites, but I guess there was one). But hearing my son say something like, “Today we’re versing that team that beat us before”, still kinda grates on me. Apparently this isn’t a local phenomenon either, they’re versing down under as well.
update: in the comments; Katie insists that the proper spelling is ‘Whoot‘, and Ben has pointed out a good article on w00t in Wikipedia.
<p>You spelled it wrong. It’s "whoot".</p>
<p>Katie may be onto something with the added "hoo," but I’ve always seen it spelled w00t. Wikipedia says we’re both right, and suggests that origin of the word may be from online gamers, or possibly from IRC warez channels:</p><p>…"w00t" also materialized on IRC (warez channels in particular) in the mid-1990s�an onomatopoeic word of the sound a robot might make ("clicks", "whirrs", and "beeps" were also popular). Upon entering a channel, or entering into a "conversation" with a bot, one could be greeted with "w00t": "W00t! Welcome nght_kllah back to #ultiwarez!"…</p><p>And, make sure the exclamation point is there. Again according to Wikipedia:</p><p>…"Also, most people claim that the term "w00t!" simply isn’t complete without the use of the exclamation mark, as it adds to the rejoiceful inherent meaning of the word…."</p>
<p>Don’t forget http://www.woot.com – best site ever.</p>
<p>Chris…. your such a nOOb.</p>