NON-WORD VOTED WORD OF THE YEAR 2007 - SAY WHAT?

Thousands of people took part in the search for Merriam-Webster's Word of the Year for 2007.

The vast majority of participants chose a that has not found its way into a regular Merriam-Webster dictionary yet—but its inclusion in their online Open Dictionary, along with the top honors it's now been awarded—might just improve its chances.

According to the Web site: 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.

Merriam-Webster's #1 Word of the Year for 2007 based on votes from visitors to their Web site is (cue drum roll here):



w00t (interjection) - expressing joy (it could be after a triumph, or for no reason at all); similar in use to the word "yay."

Noah Webster is spinning in his grave.