| Revision as of 15:08, 4 January 2008 editPablo Mayrgundter (talk | contribs)228 edits Describe term as a wolf-whistle to clear up usage in songs.← Previous edit | Revision as of 07:54, 8 January 2008 edit undoCumulus Clouds (talk | contribs)6,434 edits article is unusable in this formNext edit → | ||
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| {{wi|Appendix:Internet slang#W}} | |||
| {{lowercase|title=w00t}} | |||
| {{dablink|This article is about the word. For the online retailer, see ]}} | |||
| {{Wiktionary|woot}} | |||
| The term "'''w00t'''" (pronounced, and sometimes spelled, "'''woot'''"; ]: {{IPA|}}) is a ] ] used to express happiness, excitement or joy, most often expressed via the ]. The expression has been used in ] posts , multiplayer computer games (especially ]s), the ] and ] ], ], ], and ]. | |||
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| == Origins == | |||
| w00t is also said to be an abbreviation for "We Owned the Other Team", but this is a ]. | |||
| The current use of w00t on the Internet traces its origins back to a popular culture reference from the early 1990s. In ] two popular songs with similar titles and themes both rose to the top 10 of ] popularity chart for the year. "Whoot, there it is" and "Whoomp, there it is" by rap groups ] and ], respectively. In both the term was used as a "wolf whistle" at the sighting of a voluptuous woman's posterior (which followed in the footsteps of the previous summer's #3 smash hit "Baby Got Back" by ]). The popularity of these songs and the phrase quickly spread to the internet in discussion of the songs and in similar discussion in alt.rap and rec.music. | |||
| However, the phrases were catching on in a larger context, as in about "whoot" from rec.sport.basketball.pro (nb. the citation of the Chicago Tribune newspaper): | |||
| Newsgroups: rec.sport.basketball.pro | |||
| Date: 23 Jun 1993 20:54:59 -0500 | |||
| From: p...@genesis.MCS.COM (Patrick Sugent) | |||
| Subject: Re: Crowd chant at Bulls rally? | |||
| lore...@rintintin.Colorado.EDU (Eric Lorenzo) writes: | |||
| > I taped the Bulls rally today (being from Chicago) and I was trying | |||
| >to figure out what the crowd was chanting. I still had trouble when the | |||
| >players would start the crowd going also. It sounded like 'Boom! There you | |||
| >go.' Was this some sort of rallying cry they had during the Finals? I had | |||
| >never heard it until today. | |||
| They were saying (or so the paper says) "Whoot! There it is." | |||
| I have no idea what this means and I have never heard it in conjunction | |||
| with the Bulls. Apparently, it has something to do with a rap song | |||
| or some such (implied by the Tribune). This is not exactly my area | |||
| of expertise. :-) | |||
| After that there are more appearances of the same phrase in the sports context and increasingly as a standalone phrase in more ] settings. July 11 1993 in rec.games.frp.dnd : | |||
| Newsgroups: rec.games.frp.dnd | |||
| Date: Sun, 11 Jul 1993 20:47:06 GMT | |||
| From: dhe...@mindvox.phantom.com (Double Helix) | |||
| Subject: Net.Rogues.Gallery | |||
| I think it would be interested to make a Net.Rogues.Gallery. People | |||
| could send in some of their most famous/infamous PCs and NPCs. What | |||
| does everyone think about it? Does something like this already | |||
| exist? I'd be willing to compile the list. | |||
| -Dh* | |||
| Double Helix & Wistful | |||
| dhe...@mindvox.phantom.com - "Whoot, there it is." | |||
| shows a sarcastic take on the phrase in alt.music.alternative, and predates only slightly in the subject-line of this alt.] post on Aug 8, 1993: | |||
| Newsgroups: alt.cyberpunk | |||
| Date: 8 Aug 1993 13:52:11 -0400 | |||
| From: c...@panix.com (Clay Shirky) | |||
| Subject: Whoot, there it is/NYT and the death of c-p | |||
| Just finished the NYT article about Idol, which was pretty amusing, but the | |||
| sidebar containing a McHistory of c-p is the death knell, containing such | |||
| pieces of balanced reporting as calling rtm a cyberterrorist, calling the | |||
| internet DARPANet and saying that EFF was founded to "keep the Government off | |||
| hackers backs." | |||
| My new "Quadratic Rip-Tide Theory of Information Channels" is that when the | |||
| volume of misinformation about a given subject is >= the square of the | |||
| volume of real information moving in the opposite direction, the real | |||
| information is sucked deep into a watery grave. ;-) | |||
| Further sightings repeat the new geek application of the phrase, with the double-zero "00" form appearing in November of 1994, on rec.skiing.snowboard: | |||
| Newsgroups: rec.skiing.snowboard | |||
| Date: Sat, 19 Nov 1994 21:17:00 -0500 | |||
| From: John Paul Brzustowicz <j...@andrew.cmu.edu> | |||
| Subject: Re: Widowmaker CD ROM very soon | |||
| Excerpts from netnews.rec.skiing.snowboard: 19-Nov-94 Re: Widowmaker CD | |||
| ROM very .. by S...@sukmag.demon.co.uk | |||
| > Quick Time 2.0 films, interviews with Brushie, Kelly, Haakonsen ++ So | |||
| > check your sources before you slag, ok. | |||
| Hey slick, back up there a second.... | |||
| I have that CD-ROM from Burton too, but I didn't see any interviews... | |||
| sure I saw them all riding, they got clips of that, but I never really | |||
| saw any interviews. Maybe I missed something... | |||
| I talked to some lady at Burton, and she was saying there's all | |||
| kinds of neat stuff on the disk, like clicking in different places or | |||
| such gets neat things not otherwise seen.....anyone find any of these? | |||
| wh00t!!!! | |||
| Euler_ | |||
| and then for (removing the 'h') in alt.games.doom a few days later, in a user's name: | |||
| Newsgroups: alt.games.doom | |||
| Date: 24 Nov 1994 05:28:38 GMT | |||
| From: w...@access4.digex.net (Da W00T ) | |||
| Subject: multiplayer game door | |||
| What does anybody know about multiplayer game doors for BBS's.. | |||
| I investigated APCi's server MPGS and it requires 2 machines with 2 | |||
| digiboards... are there any others that people know of? if so please | |||
| EMAIL me with a response to this post... I need it ASAP... | |||
| thanks.. | |||
| The link to Doom is interesting, as ] itself appeared in 1993 -- the same year as the popular "whoot" rap songs -- and included a multi-player mode where players could type messages to each other during gameplay. The "w00t" form would have been faster to type, and of course more ]. | |||
| As the term began to be used in geek settings, it has been proposed that the word gained popularity as a term for "root access." ] often communicated using code words to signify their progress on the machine they were attempting to compromise. The code word for ] to a ] was ''woot'', and because of the difficulty in obtaining root access, ''w00t'' was used in a celebratory manner.{{Fact|date=December 2007}} | |||
| "Woot!!" is also a commonly used term in MMORPGs (massive-multiplayer-online-role-plaing-games) or RPGs (role-playing games) in general to shorten the phrase "wow loot" or 'wondrous loot' thus "woot". This term is thus associated with happiness or joy because it denotes the finding of significant wealth, treasure, or items which are desirable.{{Fact|date=December 2007}} | |||
| ==Alternative Meaning== | |||
| The term, woot, was in use in Middle English literature to mean "know". The term can be found in line 849 of ]'s ''The Wife of Bath's Tale'': | |||
| "For wel I woot thy pacience is gon.." ("For well I know your patience will be gone"). . | |||
| ==2007 "Word of the Year"== | |||
| "W00t" was among the list of ] for 2007.<ref name="google">{{cite web | |||
| | url = http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5imcJd2ELqieBlFxBLhBnP5k4juaAD8TFGLM00 | |||
| | title = Merriam-Webster's Word of '07: 'W00t' | |||
| | publisher = ] | |||
| | date = ] | |||
| | accessdate = 2007-12-12 | |||
| }}</ref> According to ]'s president, John Morse, "w00t" was an ideal choice for the Word of the Year because it blends whimsy and new ]. | |||
| ==External Links== | |||
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| ==References== | |||
| {{Reflist}} | |||
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| ==See also== | |||
| * ] | |||
| * ] | |||
| {{Spoken Misplaced Pages|w00t.ogg|2006.05.14}} | |||
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Revision as of 07:54, 8 January 2008
Soft redirect to Wiktionary| Misplaced Pages does not have an article on "w00t", but its sister project Wiktionary does:
Read the Wiktionary entry "Appendix:Internet slang#W" You can also:
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