Merriam-​Webster have announced ‘w00t’ as their word of the year this year. I first saw this on the Metro this morning, but when I got to work and Googled it, I found it reported pretty much everywhere. Unfortunately on their web-​site the Metro coverage has taken on a somewhat tounge-​in-​cheek tone and been placed in their “weird” section. The paper publication had a much more endearingly earnest and bewildered tone about it.

I’m really not sure I entirely approve of the choice. I mean w00t is not a word, it’s a misspelling of an exclamation of joy. It’s really not that distinct from making “booya” your word of the year. The whole thing smacks of an attempt by Miriam Webster to show that they’re ‘down’ with the way ‘the kids’ are making use of language today, and prove that they’re still relevant in a world where kids take pride in not being able to write a real English sentence. Obviously, as a gamer (and an online wit!) I’ve been known to use 1337-​speak on occasion, but I’m not under the impression that I’m part of some avant-​garde linguistic revolution; the whole thing is a convoluted online joke born out of the normal teenagers’ desire to communicate without their parents knowing what they’re saying. It’s not a “new way of using language,” it’s a modern take on that ridiculous pig-​latin thing that most kids learn to talk in at the age of six, and we, as adults, should not be dignifying it with a place in the dictionary; ixnay on the eetlay-​peaksay.

Anyway, who says ‘w00t’ anymore? Surely they should have gone for ‘FTW!’