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Word of the Year: Technobabble Triumphant |
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Dr. Samuel Says -
Arts & Science
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Written by Dr. Samuel Centralia, Ph.D., D.D.S., Esq.
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Wednesday, 12 December 2007 |
I am honored and humbled to stand before you today in celebrating the life and art of the legendary Joyce DeWitt. Has there ever, in the history of recorded civilization, existed a person who so thoroughly embodies Beauty, Intelligence, Charm and Genius? I think not. My first encounter with Ms. DeWitt, in 1979, was both intellectually stimulating and erotically -- oops, wait a sec. Wrong notes.
(Sorry about that. I'm giving a speech tonight at the Joyce DeWitt
Lifetime Achievement Tribute in Barcelona. Got my index cards mixed up)
Aha, here we go: Merriam-Webster, Inc., announced today the winner of
its extremely annual Word of the Year competition. This year's winner
underscores, yet again, the tremendous influence that technology,
particularly the Internet, has brought to bear on the English language.
 The word is "w00t," spelled just like that, using zeroes instead of a
certain rather pedestrian vowel we could name. It is an expression of
triumph roughly equivalent to "Hooray!," "Whoo-hoo!, " or -- for those
conversant with Renaissance Festival culture -- "Huzzah!" It's
primarily employed by the young people today when engaging in online
video games, chat, or cell-phone-enabled text messaging.
The M-W website says: 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.
My feelings on this development are somewhat ambiguous. On the one
hand, I subscribe wholeheartedly to the concept of a living language,
in which rules are made to be broken, and entirely new words and
phrases are born every day. The Urban Dictionary is fun place to check
out in this regard.
On the other hand, quite frankly, I don't believe for a second that
"w00t" won this competition fair and square. The contest was decided by
online voting, and gamers are famously skilled at the decentralized
cooperation needed for stuffing virtual ballot boxes. I should know,
being a devotee of certain insanely complex and hopelessly esoteric
online card games.
I prefer the Word of the Year put forth by the California-based Global
Language Monitor, which uses an algorithm to track words and phrases in
the media and on the Internet. Their top word, "hybrid," evokes the
strange zeitgeist that global warming has brought to the planetary
conversation. According to GLM, the term has broad connotations of "all
things green from biodiesel to wearing clothes made of soy to global
warming."
Indeed. But I don't have time to worry about that right now. Too nervous about my speech tonight.
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