What is Digg?173 Comments
- aepex, on 10/12/2007, -44/+138I always thought it was derived from "we owned other team", in games like Counter-Strike.
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -4/+92Buried as innacurate as there are several possible origins which were left out.
The term "w00t" (pronounced, and sometimes spelled, "woot"; IPA pronunciation: ) is a slang interjection used to express happiness or excitement, most often expressed via the Internet. The expression has been used in Usenet posts [1], multiplayer computer games (especially first-person shooters), the IRC and SILC chat protocols, instant messages, weblogs, and web forums, and even spoken aloud. It is considered as leet speak (l337).
Possible derivations
* As a vocal expression, perhaps a portmanteau of "woo" and "hoot".
* As a type of onomatopoeia, reflecting the rising sound of a siren or klaxon.
* From MUD video games, meaning "wow, loot!", "woohoo, loot", or "wonderful loot". Also spelled wewt.
* Acronym for "Win Over Other Team", or in the original Quake servers as "We Owned the Other Team" or "We Own Other Teams" .
* In the hacking/cracking scene, the administrative account on Unix-like systems is usually named "root". One of the aims in cracking a system of this type is gaining "root" access, and hence full control of the system. Under this derivation "w00t" is a leetspeak corruption of the word "root", used as a general exclamation of victory.
* "What" in leetspeak.
* Acronym for "Waste of Our Time," that confused sarcasm for excitement.
* Woot is the name of a mask/helmet used by the Kuba people of the congo to repesent the first ancestor. Used in initiation ceremonies for boys, funerals, or rituals concerning the sacred king. Made of fiber, cowries, beads and wood.
The games/cracking scene usage of the word w00t seem of later origin than the vocal expression. The oldest references on Usenet to w00t date from 1996, woot can be found as early as 1994 ("Woot! I got 'da Land!"). However, there's a rap song from a group named 95 South that is called "Whoot, There It Is", dating back to early 1993.
Usage
* Used as an exclamation, often used alone.
* Example: "w00t! i just pwn3d that n00b!" (Commonly used while online gaming.)
* Example: "You're especially boring tonight." "w00t!" (Often used as a sarcastic substitute for a meaningful reply.)
* Example: "w00t! i am 1337" (Also used while online gaming)
http://en.allexperts.com/e/w/w/w00t.htm - LucerinRed, on 10/12/2007, -6/+77the origin of something and where it became popularized are two entirely different things. Like Nirvana didn't invent grunge, CS didn't invent w00t
I heard and used woot way before CS was even announced - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -1/+59First use of "woot!" on Usenet: Oct 17, 1994.
"Woot! I got 'da Land!" in rec.games.deckmaster.marketplace
http://groups.google.com/group/rec.games.deckmaster.marketplace/msg/06964d199ffa5598
First use of "w00t" on Usenet: Nov 23, 1994.
A user named "Da W00T [AcC3$$ D3Ni3D]", in alt.games.doom
http://groups.google.com/group/alt.games.doom/browse_thread/thread/b44f776fd19884bc/bd627d3a972ff86c - heilig, on 10/12/2007, -1/+49dungeon masters dont have levels..
- NoOneButMe, on 10/12/2007, -2/+40IRC is an acronym for Internet Relay Chat, not a word or bastardization of a pre-existing word.
- TroubleInMind, on 10/12/2007, -13/+49@itazura
Before you call somebody stupid for not knowing how "acronyms are made", you should look up the definition of the word "acronym".
An acronym is a WORD made from the initials of a title, name, or phrase. For example, LASER, RADAR, and FEMA are acronyms. FBI, CIA, USA and IRS are abbreviations. Essentially, if you pronounce it as a word, it's an acronym. If you pronounce the initials, it's an abbreviation. - Tallon29, on 10/12/2007, -1/+36"We Own the Other Team" is a backronym. It was applied to the term well after its creation.
- phillydrifter, on 10/12/2007, -2/+31WRONG! it's 'm00f' inverted:
w00t
------
m00f
see?
'm00f' is the call of the dogcow. http://www.answers.com/topic/dogcow - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -6/+26So far I think the "wow, loot" is still the most plausible origin.
- Tobey, on 10/12/2007, -0/+19I think he meant "IIRC". Which, if I remember correctly, means-- Ah, crap I forgot...
- Hindu_Wardrobe, on 10/12/2007, -1/+18w00t!
I got a box from woot this morning, interestingly enough.
Coincidence? I THINK NOT! - actionscripted, on 10/12/2007, -0/+16Well aren't j00 special.
- NoOneButMe, on 10/12/2007, -2/+18I wouldnt be surprised if it was used on BBS's or ARPAnet prior to being turned into where the article says it's from.
- cquinnd, on 10/12/2007, -4/+19Except, in all my years of playing D&D and being somewhat familiar with the culture developed in the early days of Dragon magazine, I never once heard or used the word "woot" or the phrase "wow, loot!"
What usually happened was more along the lines of:
"Wow, look a shiny pile of loot... With a BIG FREAKING MONSTER sitting on it!"
"Wow, half the party failed initiative"
"Wow, what do mean I missed, I rolled a 19!"
"Wow, half the party failed saving throws too!"
"Wow, only the Mage, Thief and the NPC Cleric are left"
"Wow, another saving throw? Okay..."
"What do you mean it was just an illusion!" "And the shiny pile of loot is all copper pieces!"
"WOOT", is the sound your DM makes as you leap over the table to strangle him. - gandhi2, on 10/12/2007, -1/+14I have never in my life heard a bigger load of *****. Anyone care for a round of Balderdash?
In the many, many, many years of playing tabletop games, and in all my encountering of the most socially retarded people among those circles, I have never, never, ever, in any stretch of my imagination, heard the word used in such a fashion. May the Knights of the Dinner Table forever haunt you and your ilk.
Buried as complete ass-crap inaccuracy. - iNoles, on 10/12/2007, -6/+19l0l, H0w this g3t this 0n fr0nt p4g3? w00t!
- Elranzer, on 10/12/2007, -7/+19IRC is not an acronym, unless you pronounce it "irk". Otherwise it's just an abbriviation.
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -7/+19"NEVER D&D"
i doub't you've ever played a serious game of d&d - hardcle, on 10/12/2007, -1/+13@benitojuarez:
Actually, "Whoot, There It Is" and "Whoomp, There It Is" were popular singles in 1993. "Whoot" was released first (April vs July) but "Whoomp" was more popular (#2 vs #11). Both songs sounded about the same.
Whoot, There It Is
http://www.allmusic.com/cg/amg.dll?p=amg&sql=10:jnftxqwgldke~T31
Whoomp, There It Is
http://www.allmusic.com/cg/amg.dll?p=amg&sql=10:hnfrxqugld0e~T31 - raganw, on 10/12/2007, -2/+13IRC is an initialism: http://lyberty.com/encyc/articles/abbr.html
Acronyms are read as they are spelled (ex. NATO), initialisms are read letter by letter (ex. FBI). - benitojuarez, on 10/12/2007, -7/+18i want to smack whoever wrote the article that omgwtfroflmaox2 is quoting from, it was NEVER EVER "Whoot, There It Is"
It was WHOOMP, there it is.
http://www.rollingstone.com/artists/tagteam/albums/album/9503083/whoomp_there_it_is
have some respect for an oldschool jam that everyone loved back in the day. - Fragalishus, on 10/12/2007, -1/+12Following with the rap themes, "woot" was also used in the late 80's generally refrerring to gang-banging (sex-wise, not actual gangs). Typically used in conjunction with phrases like "running a train". The "woot woot" being the train whistle.
Guy 1: "Let's run a train up on these ho's"
Guy 2: "Woot woot!"
This is also the most likely root for the term "what what" that later became popular. Some black comedian (Martin Lawrence?) used it a lot, iirc.
"What WhaaAAaat?"
Which would later be used in phrases like "can I get a what what and a [something] [something]?".
Now don't take this as gospel, but woot has certainly been around long before the internet boom, and this is just one additional likely source.
And contrary to most gamer's beliefs, the term "n00b" has its origins in the military. It's a shortening of the phrase "new boot" or "new B's" (noobies, newbies, etc). This would also be used in prisons later on. Freshly enlisted soldiers (and fresh meat in prisons) would be referred to as new boots since their boots had not been broken in yet from battle (or field work). Typically used as a derogatory term for being "green" or "inexperienced", which of course, has the same meaning in gaming today. - brad06, on 10/12/2007, -2/+12Woot was around LONG before Counter-Strike. I first encountered "w00t" in my Quake days. The _original_ Quake.
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -2/+12wOOt is strictly an online phenomenon, it has nothing to do with pen and paper D&D, never did. I speak from years of experience.
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -5/+14hehe, w00t on the frontpage of digg... I can just feel the nerdy energy building ;-)
- opticrime, on 10/12/2007, -0/+9oh, come on. it's older than quake. search usenet. you can find 'woot' circa '94. i guarantee it's older than that.
- BT-Wang, on 10/12/2007, -0/+8Dungeons and Dragons is a pen and paper game, not tabletop, warhammer is tabletop.
- blaze03, on 10/12/2007, -6/+14It should be fairly obvious to anyone with half a brain that "woot" is simply a vocal expression of excitement, like "wow" and the similar "woohoo". It didn't originate in DnD nor even CS, retards.
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -2/+10"So far I think the "wow, loot" is still the most plausible origin."
That is not accurate: In my many years of D&D play with many different people in many different places I have never heard once wOOt. Nor, "wow, loot".
Of course, people will go ahead and believe whatever they feel like, who needs facts about history that don't 'feel' right. - Steel_Blue, on 10/12/2007, -4/+11You should... not... do... that...
- DevilDunkard, on 10/12/2007, -1/+8I always thought it was from thast Beastie Boys song, "Shake Your Rump". "w00t w00t, is my disco call, MCA hu-huh I'm gettin' rope y'all". ***** Tight!
- toppgun, on 10/12/2007, -4/+11is it bad that I read that and understood it without a second's thought?
- foobario, on 10/12/2007, -1/+8My cousins from Texas said 'woot!' long before there were home computers, let alone internet-capable first-person shooters. I always thought it was a cowboy thing, so I was surprised when nerds started picking up on it.
- parax, on 10/12/2007, -1/+8Trying to legitimize slang is a very pointless effort. I don't care how much background people can provide on internet slang, it doesn't justify kids turning in papers with "teh" and "r u" written on them. Just as I would've been failed for writing "dude, that's so rad", you get failed for w00t and l33t.
- crossmr, on 10/12/2007, -2/+9I wonder if anyone making half assed suggestions about "we owned other team" knows what a backronym is?
It sounds like a very obvious attempt to construct one: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Backronym . The only way anyone is going to come up with a serious origin would be to actually find old forums, txt files, etc that contain its usage and start dating them. Most have authors listed. Find the earliest reference and then contact the author to find out more. - etruscan, on 10/12/2007, -2/+9* As a vocal expression, perhaps a portmanteau of "woo" and "hoot".
That's likely it... but it was later adopted by others and many want to lay claim to it - which is where the CS and D&D stories come in. - Urusai, on 10/12/2007, -1/+7Guess what, kids, words existed before the Internet, and not every term was born of the computer subculture.
- msprout, on 10/12/2007, -3/+9I've never seen so much illogical bullcrap in all my life.
"Woot" originates from the fact that it's a whoop. There's a whole lot of them, and one of them happened to be typed and become popular. People do it all the time. It's called 'onomatopoeia.'
That's all there is to it. - ubuwalker31, on 10/12/2007, -0/+6Who cares about the origins of w00t? I wanna know the origins of MILF.
- azAZ09, on 10/12/2007, -2/+7Its from the language of ancient hackereeze. From before the rocks were MUDD. Ask the Warez d00dz about it.
This has been around a long time. It is based on getting access to the root password of a Unix system. Or in reverse engineering and de-compiling software. The misspelling stuck in the online collective usage similar to the way pwned became common usage for owned. Seriously, I remember it being used back in the day. It Pre-dates counterstrike.
w00t! was Never used in Role-Playing Games. Not used in D&D or any others that I know of. Do it did not come from the true gamer culture.
"Table Top Role Playing Game"-- Does anyone else resent the way the dumbed down Console RPG's have co-opted the lexicon of the original gaming genre ? Or even that the word "gaming" itself is assumed to be synonymous with consoles?
Console RPG's are like multiple choice quizzes--not really role-playing. - Ozymandias42, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5I think you meant to type this: The amazing success of such language is made obvious by the number of and type of people using it still.
P.S. pwnd - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -1/+6I clearly remember using the term on Quake and Quake 2 servers. It is not from Quake 3.
- Tacobake, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5stfu n00b
- mtvkilledusall, on 10/12/2007, -3/+8beaten to it, please bury.
That's what I get for not refreshing before replying. - blobzorz, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5i get mine tommorow? Wow, loot? I guess for the BoC sometimes =D
- DannyJGA, on 10/12/2007, -3/+8I got to agree. I played DnD for well over a decade. I still own the very first edition which looks more like a collection of pamphlets with 2 dice. So I am as old school as they get. I have never once heard the term w00t until I played Everquest. And not even til I played EQ for a good year or so.
Never heard it used at RPG conventions. Never heard it used in Dragon magazine. Come to think of it, we pretty much always called treasure, treasure or gold or "gips" instead of saying gold peices.
The "we owned other team" explanation makes alot more sense, given the typical type of player who used the term (rather OVERused) the term when I first heard it emerge. That would be the non-Rping, raid, look cool, talk about your shiznit and your cyborz while you raid crowd, that currently has taken over every online game that would otherwise be worth playing. - xcodemanx, on 10/12/2007, -2/+7I thought it meant "w00t, w00t, we have root!" as an exclimation a hacker might say.
The article was WAY to short. It almost completly fit into the summary box... - replaysMike, on 10/12/2007, -3/+8I call BS.
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