w00t!

I was just browsing our ever burgeoning blog for posts of interest and saw one by Alyssa Anderson which caught my eye. (You can read it here by the way) She wrote about the term "PWNED" and how gaming has influenced slang. I thought it a significant point to have made. It reminded me that Merriam-Webster's Word of the Year in 2007 was “w00t”, which was certainly a surprise to many, and no small controversy at the time. “w00t” –which is spelled with two zero’s—is defined by Webster as "expressing joy (it could be after a triumph, or for no reason at all); similar in use to the word yay"

The term is part of a type of slang called “l33t speak” (elite speak) an “esoteric computer hacker language in which numbers and symbols are put together to look like letters” popularized by gamers and tech savvy teens in recent years. I have included a "lol cat" image to the right that used a few other l33t speak terms to further illustrate the topic, and also because any time you can work a lol cat into conversation is the right time. If you aren't familar with lol cats, it was a sort of internet meme that spread like wildfire a few years back on 4chan.

In a class focused on language and society, with special consideration given to how technology has and will continue to impact linguistic evolution, l33t speak is certainly something of particular note. For more information, start here.