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| {{short description|Slang interjection}} | |||
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| {{about|the word||Woot (disambiguation)}} | |||
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| {{wiktionary}} | |||
| ⚫ | The term '''w00t''' (spelled with double-zero, "00"), or '''woot''',<ref name="Telegraph"/> is a ] ] used to express happiness or excitement, usually used in online conversation. The expression is most popular on forums, ] posts, multiplayer computer games (especially ]s), ] chats, and ], though use in webpages of the ] is by no means uncommon. The ''w00t'' spelling (with double-zero "00") is a ] variant of ''woot''; alternative spellings include ''whoot'', ''wOOt'', ''wh00t'', ''wewt'', ''{{not a typo|wought}}'', etc. | ||
| :''"Woot" redirects here. For other uses, see ].'' | |||
| ==Etymology== | |||
| ]]] | |||
| See the Wiktionary article '']'' for details of etymology and citations; while origins are never certain, the below is supported by contemporary written references, and is credited by American lexicographer ].<ref name="barrett">“”, ], December 12, 2007</ref> | |||
| The term '''woot''' was recalled by a Canadian in the early 2000s to have been used in the 80s and 90s on an RPG BBS as a contraction of "what a hoot".<ref>{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=6dgTAQAAIAAJ|title=Everquest Companion: The Inside Story|last=Robert|first=Marks-|publisher=McGraw-Hill Osborne|date=2003|isbn=9780072229035|quote=I used it as an abbreviation of 'what a hoot' while we played on a role-playing BBS in the late '80s and '90s," Bradley said.}}</ref> | |||
| ⚫ | The term |
||
| '''w00t''' (1996) is a leetspeak form of earlier ''whoot'' (1993), which in turn was popularized by the rap song “]” (single released March 22, 1993) by group ]; this is often confused with “]” (single released May 7, 1993) by group ]. Both these songs are in the same year, in the ] genre. The terms ''whoot'' and ''whoomp'' (and the less common form “Whoops, there it is”) are standardizations of earlier oral use of hooting sounds<ref>Barrett, quoting Jay-Ski, who produced “Whoot, There It Is,” in a 1997 interview:<br> | |||
| == Origins == | |||
| “There were eight versions of that going around. The idea came from the streets, and even though the 95 South one might have been recorded first, it was Tag Team who released it earlier.”</ref> variously rendered as ''whoo'', ''whoof'', ''woo'', ''woof'' (compare standard '']''), notably by studio audience on '']'' (1989–94)<ref>G. Brown, ''Colorado Rocks'' (Pruett Publishing Co., 2004, p. 128), quoting members of Tag Team (Cecil “DC” Glenn and Steve “Roll’n” Gibson); quoted in Barrett:<br> | |||
| “People had been saying ‘There it is’ forever. Everybody in Arsenio Hall’s television audience used to the ‘Wooof’ chant. We put that together with the ‘There it is’ dance-floor chant we were hearing at the club.<br> | |||
| Gibson recalled that DC said, “Oh, man, we need to do a song called, ‘Whoom, there it is.”<br> | |||
| “All I said was, ‘How do you spell it?”</ref> and in the movie '']'' (1990).<ref name="barrett"/> The use by the “dog pound” section of ''The Arsenio Hall Show'' audience was based on a dog’s '']'', from chants used by football fans of the ] in Hall’s home town.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.tvacres.com/fans_dogpound.htm |archive-url=https://archive.today/20120914155114/http://www.tvacres.com/fans_dogpound.htm |archive-date=September 14, 2012 |title=Fans & Fanatics > The Dogpound (The Arsenio Hall Show) |publisher=] |access-date=September 8, 2013|url-status=dead}}</ref><ref>{{cite news|url=https://slate.com/culture/2012/06/woof-whoot-whoomp-and-w00t-from-arsenios-dog-pound-to-the-baha-men-and-beyond.html|title=Woot? Woof? Whoot? Whoomp|first=Daniel|last=Lametti|work=Slate|date=June 19, 2012}}</ref> | |||
| Many ] exist, but the written record is clear: the term appears widely in popular print use only from 1993, particularly used both in dancehalls and at sporting events, and is credited to the songs.<ref name="barrett"/> The "w00t" form gained popularity on the Internet from 1996, especially in ]s (MMORPGs) like ]. | |||
| "w00t!" comes to us via the strange path of music and culture. In ], two songs with amazingly similar titles both rose to the top 10 of ]'s hot tracks for the year. "Whoomp, there it is," and "Whoot, there it is" by rap groups ] and ], respectively, were both describing their pleasure at sighting the posterior of a voluptuous woman. These songs borrowed the topic of the previous summer's #3 smash hit "Baby Got Back" by ]. Similar phrases quickly showed up on the Internet in discussion of the songs and in similar discussion in the newsgroups alt.rap and rec.music. | |||
| ===Folk etymologies=== | |||
| A range of post-hoc explanations or ] of the origin of w00t exist, which have possibly influenced its use among certain groups: | |||
| Many folk etymologies and backronyms exist, none supported by the written record: these often credit the term to games that appeared years after ''whoot'' had been popularized (1993) or ''w00t'' has appeared in common Internet usage (1996). | |||
| One such incorrect etymology derives w00t as a contraction of a phrase like "wow, loot!", "woo, loot!", "wondrous loot", and "Wonderful Loot", etc. in a MMORPG when a player found large quantities of/or rare valuable items in game, or as an ] for "'''W'''e ] the '''O'''ther '''T'''eam".<ref name="acronyms">{{cite web | url=http://acronyms.thefreedictionary.com/W00T | title=W00T - What does W00T stand for? | access-date=July 19, 2011}}</ref> These games appeared after w00t was already common. Another supposed origin is as an expression used by a cracker (see ]) who has just broken into a computer system, obtaining "root" access: "woot, I have root!".{{Citation needed|date=March 2011}} Some people say it was just a parody on a child with a speech defect trying to say "loot" and saying "woot" instead. | |||
| * In the world of online shopping w00t is commonly used to abreviate the phrase "want one of those" when describing the desire for a particularly attractive item, usually a technical gadget. | |||
| Other etymologies relate it to "hoot" or "toot", as in trains in children's books, that went "Woot! Woot!", doing so as a statement of victory, or applauding good news. (Some people{{who|date=September 2017}} today say "Woot! Woot!" while making the hand-gesture of pulling a train's horn cord.{{cn|date=September 2017}}) Alternatively, attempts are made to relate it to the ] word "hoots", which is used in a somewhat similar manner — an exclamation signifying surprise, disbelief, or kindred reaction, though not for positive feelings (delight, joy) as w00t is. This is also along the lines of people's use of "w00t?", replacing "wot?" or "what?" as a response to a happy surprise. | |||
| * In the role-playing game, ], w00t has been variously interpreted as combinations of the phrases "weapons and loot," "wonderous loot," or "Wow, loot!", that were supposedly contracted to "w00t". | |||
| ==In popular culture== | |||
| * Several of The ]'s more than sixteen definitions for w00t define it as the acronym of the phrase "We Owned Other Team" from ] games (fps), first appearing as a motto for a ] clan, which then was used later by gamers in other games such as ]. | |||
| The word was featured on the list of ] for 2007.<ref>{{cite web | url=http://www.newsweek.com/2007/12/13/w00t-there-it-is.html | title=W00t! There It Is A quirky online gaming term is crowned Merriam-Webster's Word of the Year. A proud day for geeks everywhere. | publisher=The Newsweek | date=December 14, 2007 | access-date=July 19, 2011 | author=Jessica Bennett}}</ref> They said, it "reflects a new direction in the American language led by a generation raised on video games and cell phone text-messaging".<ref>{{cite news|author=Jason Szep |url=https://www.reuters.com/article/idUSN1155159520071212 |title=w00t crowned word of year by U.S. dictionary |publisher=Reuters |date= December 12, 2007|access-date=2011-07-19}}</ref> | |||
| Apart from the British digital sales house w00t!media<ref name="w00t!media">{{cite web | url=http://www.thedrum.co.uk/news/2011/07/12/23520-deviantart-hires-w00t-media-to-grow-advertising-in-uk/ | title=DeviantART hires w00t!media to grow advertising in UK | date=July 12, 2011 | access-date=July 19, 2011}}</ref> the expression also made it into a URL-shortener.<ref>{{cite web | url=http://w00t.in/faq.php | title=w00t.IN | F.A.Q | access-date=July 19, 2011}}</ref> ] named their 2008 album ''w00t''.<ref name="album08">{{cite web | url=http://www.acousticmusic.com/fame/p04994.htm | title=A review written for the Folk & Acoustic Music Exchange by Mark S. Tucker | date=September 9, 2008 | access-date=July 19, 2011 | author=Mark S. Tucker}}</ref><ref>{{cite web | url=https://itunes.apple.com/us/album/w00t/id285363139 | title=review and pieces listing w00t Garaj Mahal | website=] | access-date=July 19, 2011}}</ref> | |||
| * It has also been suggested that "w00t" derives from the German "Wut", meaning "rage" which would then be used by computer gamers to express their excitement. | |||
| In 2011, "woot" was added to the '']''.<ref name="Telegraph">{{cite web | url=https://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/culturenews/8708448/Woot-Retweet-and-sexting-enter-the-dictionary.html | title=Woot! Retweet and sexting enter the dictionary | publisher=The Telegraph | date=August 18, 2011 | access-date=August 18, 2011 | author=Matthew Holehouse}}</ref> The word is officially recognized in the dictionary without zeroes, and is instead spelled with two Os. | |||
| * Another interpretation sees the term coming from "]", analogously to ]'s pronunciation of ]. The logic behind this would be that ] originated from ], and that root privileges (which allow a user full control over a computer) are the object of a cracker's activities. | |||
| == References == | |||
| * The exclamation "Woot Woot" was part of a "raising the roof" gesture that was popular in the late 1990s/early 2000s, and it has been suggested that this was translated into typing as "w00t". | |||
| {{Spoken Misplaced Pages|W00t.ogg|date=2006-05-14}} | |||
| {{reflist}} | |||
| {{Internet slang}} | |||
| Further, Woot appears in ]' ] (his trilogy in 4 (now 5) parts), though that is not suggested as the origin of the term. | |||
| ] | |||
| It is also important to note the popular movement among Internet chat room, messaging service and cellphone text message users to spell common words deliberately incorrectly, with alterations such as "deez" (for "these"), or creating new words by changing spellings, such as "phat" (from "fat", meaning "cool" or "excellent") and spawned from a rapidly growing graffiti culture in urban America. | |||
| ] | |||
| ==Usages== | |||
| The term "w00t" has many usages, some of which have been explained above. The most common usage of "w00t" means "hooray!", "woohoo!", and "YEEEESSSSS!!!!". Other variations include the ] form mentioned above and the ] form, although that has been mostly replaced by the word "ownage" (a similar and more commonly used word is ] (past tense: pwned, pwnd, pwn'd, pwnt)). Less intense meanings include "cool" and "okay." Example: "Are you ready to own the other team?" "w00t." | |||
| w00t is also commonly used in ]s. It can be used in almost any context, usually as a term of excitement or acknowlagement. | |||
| ==See also== | |||
| * - alternate definitions of w00t. | |||
| * ] | |||
| * ] - ecommerce web site taking its name from this phrase | |||
Latest revision as of 15:49, 8 August 2024
Slang interjection This article is about the word. For other uses, see Woot (disambiguation).The term w00t (spelled with double-zero, "00"), or woot, is a slang interjection used to express happiness or excitement, usually used in online conversation. The expression is most popular on forums, Usenet posts, multiplayer computer games (especially first-person shooters), IRC chats, and instant messages, though use in webpages of the World Wide Web is by no means uncommon. The w00t spelling (with double-zero "00") is a leetspeak variant of woot; alternative spellings include whoot, wOOt, wh00t, wewt, wought, etc.
Etymology
See the Wiktionary article w00t for details of etymology and citations; while origins are never certain, the below is supported by contemporary written references, and is credited by American lexicographer Grant Barrett.
The term woot was recalled by a Canadian in the early 2000s to have been used in the 80s and 90s on an RPG BBS as a contraction of "what a hoot".
w00t (1996) is a leetspeak form of earlier whoot (1993), which in turn was popularized by the rap song “Whoot, There It Is” (single released March 22, 1993) by group 95 South; this is often confused with “Whoomp! (There It Is)” (single released May 7, 1993) by group Tag Team. Both these songs are in the same year, in the Miami bass genre. The terms whoot and whoomp (and the less common form “Whoops, there it is”) are standardizations of earlier oral use of hooting sounds variously rendered as whoo, whoof, woo, woof (compare standard woohoo), notably by studio audience on The Arsenio Hall Show (1989–94) and in the movie Pretty Woman (1990). The use by the “dog pound” section of The Arsenio Hall Show audience was based on a dog’s woof, from chants used by football fans of the Cleveland Browns in Hall’s home town.
Many folk etymologies exist, but the written record is clear: the term appears widely in popular print use only from 1993, particularly used both in dancehalls and at sporting events, and is credited to the songs. The "w00t" form gained popularity on the Internet from 1996, especially in massively multiplayer online role-playing games (MMORPGs) like RuneScape.
Folk etymologies
Many folk etymologies and backronyms exist, none supported by the written record: these often credit the term to games that appeared years after whoot had been popularized (1993) or w00t has appeared in common Internet usage (1996).
One such incorrect etymology derives w00t as a contraction of a phrase like "wow, loot!", "woo, loot!", "wondrous loot", and "Wonderful Loot", etc. in a MMORPG when a player found large quantities of/or rare valuable items in game, or as an acronym for "We Owned the Other Team". These games appeared after w00t was already common. Another supposed origin is as an expression used by a cracker (see security cracking) who has just broken into a computer system, obtaining "root" access: "woot, I have root!". Some people say it was just a parody on a child with a speech defect trying to say "loot" and saying "woot" instead.
Other etymologies relate it to "hoot" or "toot", as in trains in children's books, that went "Woot! Woot!", doing so as a statement of victory, or applauding good news. (Some people today say "Woot! Woot!" while making the hand-gesture of pulling a train's horn cord.) Alternatively, attempts are made to relate it to the Scots word "hoots", which is used in a somewhat similar manner — an exclamation signifying surprise, disbelief, or kindred reaction, though not for positive feelings (delight, joy) as w00t is. This is also along the lines of people's use of "w00t?", replacing "wot?" or "what?" as a response to a happy surprise.
In popular culture
The word was featured on the list of Merriam-Webster's Words of the Year for 2007. They said, it "reflects a new direction in the American language led by a generation raised on video games and cell phone text-messaging".
Apart from the British digital sales house w00t!media the expression also made it into a URL-shortener. Garaj Mahal named their 2008 album w00t.
In 2011, "woot" was added to the Concise Oxford English Dictionary. The word is officially recognized in the dictionary without zeroes, and is instead spelled with two Os.
References
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- ^ Matthew Holehouse (August 18, 2011). "Woot! Retweet and sexting enter the dictionary". The Telegraph. Retrieved August 18, 2011.
- ^ “The Real History and Origin of Woot and w00t”, Grant Barrett, December 12, 2007
- Robert, Marks- (2003). Everquest Companion: The Inside Story. McGraw-Hill Osborne. ISBN 9780072229035.
I used it as an abbreviation of 'what a hoot' while we played on a role-playing BBS in the late '80s and '90s," Bradley said.
- Barrett, quoting Jay-Ski, who produced “Whoot, There It Is,” in a 1997 interview:
“There were eight versions of that going around. The idea came from the streets, and even though the 95 South one might have been recorded first, it was Tag Team who released it earlier.” - G. Brown, Colorado Rocks (Pruett Publishing Co., 2004, p. 128), quoting members of Tag Team (Cecil “DC” Glenn and Steve “Roll’n” Gibson); quoted in Barrett:
“People had been saying ‘There it is’ forever. Everybody in Arsenio Hall’s television audience used to the ‘Wooof’ chant. We put that together with the ‘There it is’ dance-floor chant we were hearing at the club.
Gibson recalled that DC said, “Oh, man, we need to do a song called, ‘Whoom, there it is.”
“All I said was, ‘How do you spell it?” - "Fans & Fanatics > The Dogpound (The Arsenio Hall Show)". TV Acres. Archived from the original on September 14, 2012. Retrieved September 8, 2013.
- Lametti, Daniel (June 19, 2012). "Woot? Woof? Whoot? Whoomp". Slate.
- "W00T - What does W00T stand for?". Retrieved July 19, 2011.
- Jessica Bennett (December 14, 2007). "W00t! There It Is A quirky online gaming term is crowned Merriam-Webster's Word of the Year. A proud day for geeks everywhere". The Newsweek. Retrieved July 19, 2011.
- Jason Szep (December 12, 2007). "w00t crowned word of year by U.S. dictionary". Reuters. Retrieved 2011-07-19.
- "DeviantART hires w00t!media to grow advertising in UK". July 12, 2011. Retrieved July 19, 2011.
- "w00t.IN | F.A.Q". Retrieved July 19, 2011.
- Mark S. Tucker (September 9, 2008). "A review written for the Folk & Acoustic Music Exchange by Mark S. Tucker". Retrieved July 19, 2011.
- "review and pieces listing w00t Garaj Mahal". iTunes. Retrieved July 19, 2011.
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