Merriam-Webster has selected it's Word of the Year for 2007. First of all, I didn't know such a thing went on. The word that was chosen for this honor is w00t. w00t. Yes, those are zeroes. The 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.
So, umm, when did words begin having numbers in them? Online gamers have their own language? People, you really need to get your kids outside.
Two of the other finalists for the award that I really liked were blamestorm and quixotic.
Blamestorm is officially defined as sitting around in a group, discussing why a deadline was missed or a project failed, and who was responsible. Im sorry, that's just damn funny. I've seen this, and it's hilarious (unless it's affecting my ability to work; then it just pisses me off).
Quixotic is a great word that most people first run across when they're trying to pick a mood on MySpace. Quixotic means foolishly impractical especially in the pursuit of ideals; especially : marked by rash lofty romantic ideas or extravagantly chivalrous action. I get this way at times. Sometimes we forget about goals and get lost in unrealistic fantasy. Sometimes we forget that our head and heart have to work together. We're often caught following our heart while abandoning all sense of logic. We get so caught up in an idea that we often fail to see that the idea is all that's really there. I think romanticism is good quality as long as a certain amount of pragmatism accompanies it. It's okay to chase windmills sometimes, but don't ignore your head it drags you back to reality.
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