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W00t! I'm The Word Of The Year! Merriam-Webster Is Totally l337!
from the m3rr14m-w3b$73r dept
Back in 2001, the folks at the Oxford English Dictionary caused a little stir with they added Homer Simpson's "Doh!" to their dictionary of the English language. Merriam-Webster has upped the ante now by not only adding "w00t" to the dictionary, but choosing it as the 2007 word of the year. Last year, "truthiness" beat out "google" for the honor. When asked about the numerical characters in word, Merriam-Webster John Webster explained that this "is simply a different and more efficient way of representing the alphabetical character." Um, more efficient? Hardly -- w00t is from leet speak, and the orthographic substitutions of numbers for certain letters are intended to make more secure, yet easily remembered words for passwords. Is Merriam-Webster grasping for attention? With traffic on sites like urban dictionary catching up to Merriam-Webster, perhaps they wanted to curry favor with all of the l33t kids.
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Teachers everywhere are crying
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Just sad, that's all
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English is not like French
The job of a dictionary is to document the language as it exists, not as someone thinks it should be. Various types of slang gain entrance into the dictionary all the time.
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Wrong again, Mike
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it's more efficient because...
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Do people even use the word "w00t" in a non-ironic way? They're jumping on a retarded bandwagon that isn't even current.
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#7
Yes. Online gamers use it all the time as an exclamation of some success or any good thing.
It's no different than "great". Typically used to denote something good, but commonly used sarcastically to denote something not-so-good.
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Bekuz I sed so that's y!
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It's not in their online dictionary
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The Fall of Grammar-tron Nazis...
Unless all the kids are spelling that way now. Weird to wrap my mind around the idea...
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Leet been around for ages
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The enablers of low expectation
Is it a verb, adjective, adverb, exclamation?
Can I multiply, add, subtract, divide?
...strange, indeed.
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WTF?
WTF
Is probably #1 in terms of efficiency. The quantity of untyped text, saved time, so to speak, amounts to millions of lifetimes.
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WTF
jackasses
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Re:
I don't think I've ever heard woot used ironically. I've read it used that way, on forums and such, but the people who speak it say it without thought, like they would any other interjection.
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Re: The Fall of Grammar-tron Nazis...
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Re:
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Eh...
I'm ok with people using this kind of language online or on their cell phone to chat fast, but once it's introduced to the dictionary, it's fair using in any conversation.
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Re: Re:
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soo...
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Don't forget that dictionaries change the language
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Re: Don't forget that dictionaries change the lang
Bloody Yanks! The proper English spelling of w00t is whooughte.
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Does case actually matter in this word? Does it have two "0"s or two "o"s (or "O"s)
And think of all the professional scrabble players out there who are going to feel left-out of this "fantastic" new addition of words. WTF!
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l33t
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That being said, I agree that the English language is being destroyed as we speak, and dumb words aren't the half of it. Has anybody else noticed how words like "to, too" and "there, their, they're" and even "lose, loose" are almost never used correctly anymore? I'm even starting to see errors like that in major news articles now. Come on people, it's not that hard to figure out. Quit being so lazy. I am sick of having to interpret the comments from the linguistically-challenged who can't figure out how to use simple words that even a third-grader should know how to use. I think we need to stop and figure out how to use what we've got already before worrying about dumb new words that are nothing more than a fad.
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Another Suggestion for Websters...
Definition: An exaggeratory phrase to mean "a lot of something."
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Re: WTF
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Re: WTF
Let's try it again, this time with a logical argument.
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Re:
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Re: English is not like French
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WTF
Everyone just says pwn or FTW.
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Re: Re:
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Jargon and Slang
Computer jargon or slang of the 60's and 70's and even newer are finding themselves in the dictionary. Look up floppy, or CD-ROM. Take sweet or rad for instance. These words change and have new slang meanings that are now in the dictionary.
Sadly the English language allows for many words to have multiple meanings even without counting the slang meanings. That alone can be a very confusing.
I saw an article that some schools are allowing txt spelling in class. BTW they are considering it a new shorthand style. When my dictonary starts listing words like BFF, B4, WTH, WTF and more I think I'll take Latin back up.
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Re:
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There should be a limit
Seriously, yes language grows, and that is good, but there should be a difference between actual growth and trendy gobblediegook. maybe we should add ROFLMAO and CUL8ER
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@anon26: You misspelled 4W350M3
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Re: The enablers of low expectation
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