Writers Cafe - w00t - 2007 Word Of The Year & Our Living Language
The Merriam Webster 2007 word of the year is
w00t
… yes that’s right, a word with numbers in the middle. There is some dispute as to whether it was coined by hackers (to trick automated trackers) or by gamers (as in “We own other team”)
W00t indicates a similar sentiment to “Yay!” Second place was “facebook”. While ‘w00t” hasn’t made it into the dictionary, the Oxford dictionary includes Homer Simpson’s famous “D’oh”, so who knows.
Test Yourself Out On The Top 10 2007 Words
Check out the 2007 Top 10 Words Shortlist. Where was I when “Pecksniffian” or “sardoodledom” were invented? Scrabble players must love these lists. Have you coined a word yourself?
The 2006 word of the year was truthiness. Truthiness? Well, that’s one I missed and I call myself a word collector, as you’ll note in this article I wrote about my passion for words..
I love discovering new words (not sure about “truthiness”, though). As writers, words are our tools of trade. Do you find yourself using new words? What about old favorites? Any pet hates? How do you discover new words?
Let’s Talk Words
Joanna Young has already started word collecting, and has some great words to play with.
I love the evolution of language. English borrows from many other languages. Language is a living thing, but it seems to be changing more rapidly these days. Any thoughts?
Of course, you’re welcome to chat about any writing, blogging or business related issue, not just words. Ask a question, network or drop a link from your own site or someone else’s if you like.
Special Thanks To Last Weekend Writers Cafe Commenters
We went Comment Crazy and swapped ideas for how to spark comments and get blog conversations going.
Laura Spencer at Writing Thoughts
Genesis at At Home Mom Blog
Lillie Ammann at A Writer’s Words An Editor’s Eye
Jeanne Dininni at Writers Notes
Rach at Heart of Rachel
Mihaela Lica at Ewritings Online Public Relations
Suzanne Wells at Ebay Selling Coach
Claudia Pena at ClaudiaPena.com
Deb at Punctuality Rules
Joanna Young at Confident Writing
Phil Butlerat Phil Butler Unplugged
Sueblimely at Blogging Sueblimely
I love being a word smith myself! Thank you for the link love, if you are interested I also have a words section in my website. Much of my collection comes from worldwidewords.com, but others just from street finds. Checking out those other cool websites you posted, claudia
How cool, Claudia!
I’ve been exploring your words section. Check it out - a great word collection.
My personal favorite from that list is “sardoodledom - (mechanically contrived plot or structure or unrealistic characterization)” which I think explain quite will how some of these words ended up on the list!
I love words too, but don’t think I’ve coined any new ones. But my particular pastime is, um, modifying their meanings to fit my own preferences.
Interesting thing about the Top Ten Words list - other than the first two, most of them are negative: apathetic, hypocrite, charlatan, blamestorm … I wonder what that says about society or the people who suggested the words?
My sisters and I used to lie awake and invent new words when we were younger, but I can´t remember any of them at the moment. I do know that some of them were pretty gross, with meanings like “release of all bodily functions at once”. ahem. We were kids, what can I say?
I really enjoyed all the word lists. I´m a big fan of fun words myself, though I don´t think I´ve collected any in many years.
Here´s a question for you all . . . what word is just awful for you? One that you hate the way it looks, sounds, etc.
For me it would be klutz. It´s a very ugly word.
Well, as long as we have hypocrite and charlatan on the list! LMAO. w00t you say? I feel so ignorant now. I had no idea the word even existed.
Hi Robert
I enjoyed your post about making words bend to your will.
Lillie - Interesting observation. I find it interesting that the top 10 words don’t necessarily make it into the Merriam Webster dictionary.
What would you nominate for the 2008 list?
Genesis - Sounds like you’ve been a word collector from early on. An ugly word? Hmmm… will have to give that some thought.
Words I like though, are words like “serendipity”.
Hi Mig
What I find interesting about “w00t” is that we’ve always thought of words and numbers as two separate entities. I wonder if there will be more word and number mixes in the future.
I guess we’re getting used to passwords which have combinations of numbers and letters.
And how about text messaging abbreviations? I’m old fashioned enough to hope that they don’t come into everyday written language.
I find even in business emails, people sometimes use these. Teachers complain that students use text messaging words in class assignments.
Hi Yvonne
I’m with Robert. I’m pretty sure they’re making some of this up to get us to go and click on their dictionary. Sardoodledom and Pecksniffian? I don’t think so. (w00t and facebook I can believe)
I have been having a bit of fun with words this week - it was the round up a connecting words project that I ran with Brad. We came up with some fascinating contributions. Thanks for highlighting the end result.
One of the things I’ve come to appreciate through blogging is the richness of the language I’ve inherited. Words that I think are commonplace turn out to be strange and unfamiliar to others. I’m lucky to have a blogging friend like Brad who e-mails me and asks when I use something he doesn’t recognise (like dab hand, footery and fankle)
Actually that reminds me of the writing stretch I took last week, doing a piece in Cosmo-style for Brian Clark’s headline writing challenge. It was way different from the way I normally write but I enjoyed it and got lots of positive feedback on it. Oh, the link point was that one of my tips in the Cosmo-style-piece was not to witter on but get to the point. I assumed that “witter on” was a common enough expression but I got asked quite a few questions about it. It’s a great expression you’d use for those who write too much, or go on at length - in rambling comments too…
Joanna
I’m late! I hope I didn’t miss all the fun.
I think they created “pecksniffian” or “sardoodledom” solely for the purpose of tripping up fourth graders during spelling bees. (Now we’ll all have to pay attention when the kid says, “Can you use that word in a sentence?”)
Yvonne,
Like you, I love discovering new words. I also love using all words–both new and old–with precision. Just discovered the word “sesquipedalian” in my thesaurus today. What a word!
Looked it up at Dictionary.com. As an adjective, it means “given to or characterized by the use of long words” and can also mean “given to the overuse of long words.” This is an adjective that, used in the first sense, definitely describes me–and one that often describes me in the second sense, as well!
As a noun, this word means “a very long word (a foot and a half long)”! Isn’t that incredible? Check out Dictionary.com, enter “sesquipedalian,” and you’ll find all these fascinating facts!
Read your article on your passion for words and thoroughly enjoyed it! Greatly appreciated the eloquent manner in which you expressed your thoughts! Thanks for linking to it!
Jeanne
Aren’t words interesting and how they change in meaning over the ages? I think we’re encountering the invention of more new words than ever with the Age of the Internet.
Hi Laura
That’s funny. I don’t know how those kids spell some of those huge words.
Hi Jeanne
Thanks for sharing “sesquipedalian” with us… fascinating. Thanks for your positive feedback on my article… pleased you enjoyed it.
Hi Mary Emma
I think “internet” is a word you recognize in pretty much any language. I wonder if there is a growing trend towards some more modern words being universal.
Hi Yvonne. I have encountered the word “w00t” several times in different blogs. I admit I didn’t understand it at first. I just tried to read between the lines and assumed it meant something to be happy or excited about. Interesting about the zeros in between the letters. I never noticed that before. I learned something new today.
I’d somehow missed sardoodledom, too, which is a darn shame because I can think of a number of tv shows that I could accuse of that, now that I know the word!
Hi Rach - The numbers is something new… the first alphanumeric word… I guess we’re getting used to it with alphanumeric passwords.
Hi Deb
Yep! Sardoodledom actually fits some TV shows quite well.
Sardoodledom Update
Laura mentioned these words and spelling bees. I just discovered this from Answers.com -
http://www.answers.com/topic/sardoodledom
“Kennyi Aouad, 11, of Terre Haute, Ind., became a crowd favorite after he couldn’t stop laughing when he was given the funky-sounding word ‘Sardoodledom’ (a melodramatic plot). He finally composed himself and asked all sorts of questions about the word — definition, part of speech, alternate pronunciations, use in a sentence — then tried to get an unallowable hint by asking: ‘Is it kind of like kingdom?’ He could hardly believe it when he spelled the word correctly.”
You can even watch a this video. Check out the spellmaster’s definition… seemed pretty complex to me as a definition to give in a kid’s competition.
Hi Joanna
“Witter”… that’s a new one for me. It seems to be a derivative of twitter or sounds like it anyway, so the meaning you give makes sense.
Better stop now in case you accuse me of wittering.
Hi Yvonne, actually witter is an old (UK) word. It’s hard not to make an association with Twitter though, which makes me think that the brand-namers weren’t familiar with the word… Or maybe they didn’t care.
I have to confess I’ve been using a Twitter over the last few weeks and starting to ‘get’ it - and quite enjoy it. Anybody else tried it?
Joanna
Hi Joanna
Interesting, as we don’t use “witter” in Australia.
Tell us about your Twitter adventures. At first it was dismissed, but lately I’ve been hearing good things about Twitter.
Hi Yvonne
For me it’s an extension of blogging. The people that I ‘follow’ are other bloggers and a lot of the conversation is a continuation or extension of a blogging conversation - some people might think out loud re the composition of a post, or a reaction to it, or continue and extend some parts of the commenting conversation.
I think I’ve got to know some bloggers better by ‘listening’ to them and connecting to them there - and vice versa I guess.
People use it a lot to ask for help, suggestions, ideas, how to use a piece of IT - so it feels constructive, practical, conversational - not just wittering on:-)
Some people sign off as if they’ve just spent an hour having coffee with friends - and I think that’s what it offers at its best. Perhaps we could experiment with a grow your writing business cafe on twitter some time?
There are clearly some people who ‘tweet’ continually during the day. I might go in once or twice and write two or three things - a mixture of thinking out loud, replies to other people’s messages, and some pointing towards something that I’ve written.
It’s much more creative, interesting and interactive than Facebook - and there is something of a challenge in composing your thoughts in 140 characters.
Sorry, that wasn’t very well constructed, but maybe gives some insight into it. If anyone is interested I’d say it’s worth giving it a try. Start by putting your ear to the ground and listening. Find some people you ‘know’ (like other bloggers) to follow, and see how they’re using it. You can always start by following me!
http://twitter.com/joannayoung
Like other social media sites you can also see who I follow/follows me, and from them to their friends, so you’re bound to see some folk that you recognise.
Joanna
Hi, Yvonne,
Numbers in between? That’s very 22nd century for me!! I feel bad that I missed the Cafe fun, and that my tray of Biscotti’s too late!!! Enjoy your exchanges re those “new” words. Better start filling and enriching my words chest now!!
Have a great week.
Princess
Hi Joanna
I checked out your Twitter site. Business wise, it seems the concept has been used in innovative applications. Thanks for the insights. I’ll look into it some more.
Hi Princess
You’re never too late, especially when you bring a tray of biscotti’s. Pleased you enjoyed our word exchange.
Dec 16th, 2007 at 1:28 pm
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Apr 29th, 2008 at 12:28 am
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