Another Sign of the Apocalypse

It seems Merriam Webster declares some word to be the Word of the Year every year. Who knew? Their pick this year: w00t.

This year's winning word first became popular in competitive online gaming forums as part of what is known as l33t ("leet," or "elite") speak—an esoteric computer hacker language in which numbers and symbols are put together to look like letters. Although the double "o" in the word is usually represented by double zeroes, the exclamation is also known to be an acronym for "we owned the other team"—again stemming from the gaming community.

I consulted my own expert, Garrett. I decided to begin by simply trying it out on him. I forget how the conversation led up to it, but the important part went like this. "Woot!" I say. Garrett gives me this kind of disgusted cockeyed look, with the raised eyebrow. "Dad! I don't ever want to hear you say that again." "Why?" "It's just... wrong."

Upon further investigation, it appears to be inappropriate to actually say. You can type it. If you're l33t enough. I think it would be inappropriate in an online Scrabble game, but you could give it a shot. You have been warned, though.