W00t!

Merriam-Webster’s Word of the Year for 2007 is w00t. The term is the winner of the annual online poll conducted by the dictionary publisher.

Merriam-Webster’s president, John Morse, said “w00t” was an ideal choice because it 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.

Such recognition usually spells the end of the coolness factor for a slang term. The winner of the 2006 poll was “truthiness”. Link -via Fark