Talk:w00t

Origin Debate

Rap Origin Theory

Pablo Mayrgundter 04:26, 7 Jun 2005 (UTC) says:

I posted the claim that w00t comes from the rap songs. I've never really doubted this origin, despite quite a plethora of other attempted attributions ;) but I've finally busted out google groups and it's now very clear the derivation is as claimed.. with a fairly smooth lineage at that. It looks like most of the other attributions are much later than the earliest ones I found, so to spare space in the article, I think it's best to move from the origin in the rap songs to the first occurence as w00t, and not include anything from there. Here's the draft:

"w00t comes to us via a strange path through music and culture. In 1993 two songs with amazingly similar titles both rose to the top 10 of Billboard's hot tracks for the year. "Whoomp, there it is," and "Whoot, there it is" by rap groups Tag Team and 95 South, respectively, were both describing their pleasure at sighting the posterior of a voluptuous woman (and following in the footsteps of the previous summer's #3 smash hit "Baby Got Back" by Sir Mix-A-Lot). These phrases quickly showed up on 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 this post about "whoot" from rec.sport.basketball.pro:

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 in the sports context and increasingly as a standalone phrase in more "geeky" settings. July 11 1993 in rec.games.frp.dnd saw whoot in a DND gamer's sig:

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."

This post shows a sarcastic take on the phrase in alt.music.alternative, and predates only slightly the first solid use of whoot as a geeky slang interjective in alt.cyberpunk 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, first as wh00t on rec.skiing.snowboard, and then for the first time in its more common refinement (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 [AcC3$$ D3Ni3D])
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 Doom 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 l33t".

How is "w00t" any faster to type than "woot"?? Since a greater number of people look at the keys to type numbers than for letters, because of the additional reach required, it is more likely that "woot" would be faster. The l33t explanation is far more likely.--Jeffro77 08:09, 6 March 2006 (UTC)

"w00t" is faster to type than "whoot" because it has less letters. The 0 instead of o is pure 1337. 71.220.211.235 (talk) 03:46, 27 January 2008 (UTC)

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In reference to all the newsgroup postings (as seen above on this discussion page as well)... WHY are they included in the main article? The information contained therein is superfluous and mostly worthless, and can be summarized in one sentence, or linked to relevant usenet archives (through Google Groups?). I would seriously consider deleting the whole thing, but am hesitant incase someone disagrees. Please reply. --Ilyag 05:10, July 21, 2005 (UTC)

--68.38.203.59 22:26, 22 July 2005 (UTC) I posted the newsgroup postings for two reasons. The history of the word is actually highly disputed, and the explanation is fairly interesting. I could see removing them in the future once the article has settled, or trimming them down perhaps, but I figured it was all or none in making the case of the origin of the word.

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I'm glad I am not alone in remembering these two songs as the first place I heard the term. Would links to the Amazon entries for the songs in question be out of place? (They have playable RealMedia / WMP samples of the songs)

Whoot (There it is) by 95 South

Whoomp (There it is) by Tag Team

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w00t!

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w00t is also derived from the phrase 'woo! loot!' i belive it was featured in either everquest or rtcw3D i don't remember which.

Rap Origin presented as the real Origin

It's one thing for it to be a theory, quite another for the article to label it as a known origin: it's probably the right origin, and maybe use is particular popular on USENET, but a Google groups search or a few Usenet posts containing the word w00t by themselves are not really a credible source, what I want to see is a good source that claims this is the actual origin of the slang, as opposed to say another Folk etymology. The problem with going through Google groups like that is it's incomplete; they don't have all postings, particularly those marked "No Archive", key pieces to the puzzle could be missing, so it would be Original Research to attempt to discern the origin from a source like that. --Mysidia (talk) 07:38, 15 January 2006 (UTC)

When we use the term it is short for ejaculate. Also used in multiples w00t w00t w00t! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 63.217.255.210 (talk) 15:19, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

w00t as a derivative and leetified version of root

Plain and simple, r to w, oo to 00, and the t stays. I originoally heard it exclaimed near me by someone completing a hacker challenge. When asked he said that he had achieved the goal and the customary hacker response is w00t, because when a hacker gains root he has achieved whatever he needs to do with the box.

Can you substantiate that? - jredmond 23:05, 17 Feb 2005 (UTC)

ISTR some CS students in the early '90s using "root" and "guest" as expressions of, respectively, excellence and mediocrity. The allusion there was definitely to computer permissions in which "root" was the highest level of access and "guest" (an unauthenticated user) the lowest. E.g., "Mountain Dew is root." "Canadian Mountain Dew is guest; there's no caffeine in it."

It seems likely to me that "w00t" comes from "root" either by way of a script kiddie's taunt ("i w00ted u") or by way of the root/guest slang. But I sadly do not have a citation for either. --FOo 00:28, 29 May 2005 (UTC)

The most likely origin is as an expression used by a cracker (see security cracking) who has just broken into vulnerable Unix system, obtaining root access: "woot, I have root!"

• How is this more likely than any of the other possible explanations for the origins of w00t? If this cannot be explicitly substantiated with evidence it needs to be refactored. —RaD Man (talk) 03:23, 14 Apr 2005 (UTC)

i was under the exact same impression, ie that w00t was derived from root. it sort of makes sense i guess seeing as 1337 was orignaly used by hackers, and root (privleges) are generaly the holy grail for any hacker. seeing as this is quiet a populer belief amoung online comunitys (where it is believed that the term woot most likely orignated from), i think it should be included on the page. Craptree 22:43, 10 November 2005 (UTC)

I too was under the impression that w00t was derived from "root" as early on (pre-93) we would often change admin. user names. Eventually, it became a purposful imitation of someone with a speech defect (Tom Elmer Fudd Brokaw, actually) and around the computer room(s) would say, for example, Bwyan instead of Brian, Woot instead of Root, and weewee instead of really. th

A possible reason for the lack of sources or citations of early IRC c/h/acker use is due to the fact that in those days, logging your conversation in channel was taboo. To say nothing of the fact that we didn't expect be having a conversation twenty years later on the origins of something that was a throwaway phrase. --kzk —Preceding unsigned comment added by 128.177.30.130 (talk) 19:57, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

Having been part of the BBS scene, long before the internet became popular, and having hung around in hacker and cracker groups, I can definitely say that woot came from root. At least in those circles. Although 'Whoop, there it is' was a popular song, I don't recall anyone ever saying to me 'whoop' on it's own, simply because it's too obscure to understand via text that you're referring to a song called 'whoop, there it is'. "I got root", however, does have a meaning behind it (the same meaning behind "you got owned", which later changed to just "owned" and then "pwned", incidentally). So "I got root", changed to "root!", to "woot!" (more playful) and then "w00t!" (in leetspeak). There used to be old guides to acronyms around that time, too. I wonder if anyone thought to check one? 82.71.7.96 (talk) 00:19, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

That's great, but do you have a reliable source that confirms that? Powers ^T 15:22, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

Other ideas

I surfed through Google Groups interface and found two instances of "Woot!" as a standalone phrase from mid to late 1994. The later post titled "Woot! I got 'da Land!" is from a Paul Stephanouk dated October 18, 1994. The earlier post in September 12, 2004 was from a Chris Fisher who in a thread about a Huntsville, Alabama (USA) indoor laser tag location (or game?) called "Q-Zar" wrote: "Yesterday we all played again, my first game was a low scorer, I helped lots of newbies get some base hits and for the cause (our team won!@# woot!@#) I died a lot." Here's the entire thread. It's interesting to note that Paul Stephanouk (who is mentioned as a "director of systems development" at a Huntsville ISP) initiated that thread.

There appear to be Fall 1993 references to the US football team, the New Orleans Saints who used the "Whoot! There it is!" phrase in a cheer. The poster says he knew the correct spelling only because the phrase was on t-shirts. Here's my totally speculative scenario: whoever handled cheerleading for the New Orleans Saints decided on the "Whoot! There it is" cheer because of its simularity to the "Whoomp!" version. Perhaps the choice of "Whoot!" versus "Whoomp!" got decided on licensing grounds (this phrase after all ended up on t-shirts). Anyway, Saints fans take the phrase home with them and within a short while bring it to the internet.

I apologize for the number of Google links, but Google groups does appear here to be useful to help determine when these phrases appeared in the wild. - KarlHallowell 00:54, 29 May 2005 (UTC)

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Is it not clear that w00t comes from the German for cool?

Can you substantiate that? - jredmond 23:06, 17 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Oh, it's kind of obvious if you ignore the utter lack of wootness in the German language. In fact, German doesn't have a single word that remotely resembles the spelling and/or pronunciation of "woot". Spelling-wise "Wort" gets close, but that simply means "word". -- Ashmodai 07:20, 17 February 2006 (UTC)

Well, we do have a word that is pronounced the same (at least when w00t rhymes to shoot), "Wut" which means anger. But I doubt very much that this has anything to do with each other. And at least to my knowledge there is no word for cool that comes near to it. Especially since the most common word for "cool" is "cool" ;-) -- Windharp 09:11, 8 March 2006 (UTC)

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I too hold that w00t derives from "what"; initially used as a replacement, leetspeek-like, and then slowly deriving it's own meaning, particularly so since the pronounciation is similar to other English non-word cries of victory or success (such as "wooohoo!").

Toast.

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Quake II Sound Effect Origin Theory

Someone has been editing the page claiming w00t is the vocalization of a sound effect in the early '90s shooter Quake II. This is nonsense. The Quake_series began in 1996. DanielHolth 30 June 2005 22:23 (UTC)

Tribes

It may have existed beforehand, but as far as I can remember (and corroborate with other heavy internet gamers of the time), w00t really came into its own in Starsiege: Tribes. --gwax UN (say hi) 00:07, 1 April 2006 (UTC)

Woohoo

I don't think w00t is made from another word or an acronym; to me it seems like a phonetic representation of a cheer someone might use similar to "woohoo". Particularly if someone had a speech impediment, or by accident it doesn't seem unusual for someone to exclaim "w00t" without knowing that it's commonly used. Also: "The Simpsons (episode 146, season 7, 1996). Itchy and Scratchy is replaced by a political cartoon - immediately following the "amendment to be" song in the cartoon, a manic amendment repeatedly exclaims "woot" whilst firing a pair of pistols and running up the Congress steps." I'm pretty sure he's saying "whoop woopwoopwoop", as a tribute to the 3 Stooges. 24.146.8.72 18:55, 27 June 2006 (UTC)

Agreed. Trying to trace its actual origin is tricky - because there wasn't a single one. Wasn't the paper clip invented by several sources simultaneously? It just worked. The whole "woo" base is phonetically tied to a happy/excited exclamation. Unless I'm mistaken, 'pwn' was naturally occuring as well, as an 'own' typo. --Falos 19:46, 12 October 2006 (UTC)

Final Fantasy

Isn't this what the chocobos in Final Fantasy VII (possibly earlier) say? Since the origins of this word are unclear it may not be possible to determine which came first. Fazul 13:32, 30 August 2006 (UTC)

I thought the Chocobos in FF7 said 'wark'? Draculix 13:39, 11 September 2006 (UTC)

Missing link

w00t is a word spelled in leetspeak http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leet and should mention this and link here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leet ? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 83.109.166.218 (talk) 21:41, 28 November 2010 (UTC)

MUDDs

We were using "w00t!" back in 1993-4 whilst playing MUDDs, the forerunner to MMORPGs. I'm pretty sure a few of these worlds have been archived, so a journalist writing on this subject may want to follow up on that. Bear in mind we don't publish original research on Wikipedia, but if you can get an article published (not self-published), we can cite it here. Rklawton (talk) 19:25, 10 August 2018 (UTC)

Deletion Debate

For an August 2004 deletion debate over this page see Wikipedia:Votes for deletion/W00t

Definition

i have alwas been under the impression, that "w00t" is used as a shocked/outraged kind of "what".. like: Person 1: "i'll go kill myself now!" Person 2: "w00t!?"

The word is also used in situations of confusion, caused by something totally unrealistic, like some sort of lucky mass-kill in a computer game. More an expression, then a question to what actually happened..

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The article states that the term has not yet reached general usage and understanding. What does this mean, exactly? Certainly, amonsgst some people it is popularly understood and amongst others it is not. However, I think the younger generation of Westerners for the most part understand the term, and in a few years this will equate to a good amount of adults who do. What qualifies as general usage/understanding?

Although not implicitly clear, I think what the author meant is that "w00t" does not have one single meaning. Much in the same way that the slange usage of the word "word" itself is used today. For the most part though, it is an interjection to express excitement (as noted) or used as an acknowledgement in response to a question. For example, you could tell a friend, "I just leeched a copy of Half Life 2, want to come over and check it out?" and the appropriate reply could be "w00t!" (or "word!") in this instance meaning "Yes, of course!"

w00t in everyday Language

I use the term "w00t!" in everyday language. So do a large group of my friends, and many others as well.

The term has become, not only a Net culture, but a RL Culture as well.

ie. "I just got paid! W00t!"

Again, showing excitement of the statement.

Or "you are t3h suck! w00t!", which also can be said in RL (Pronunciating the "t3h" is mandatory)

Editorial

This article includes the incredibly unhelpful claim that "w00t is pronounced as if it were 'woot'". There is no common English word "woot", so how is anyone to know how to pronounce it? The "oo" could be pronounced as in "book" or as in "boot". Can someone please clarify this, preferably using [[(IPA)IPA]] symbols or whatever equivalent phonetic transcription is accepted on Wikipedia? Psychonaut 14:14, 7 Sep 2004 (UTC)

I changed that sentence to indicate that "w00t" rhymes with "boot" and "root", though someone more fluent in the Wikipedia phonetic alphabet of choice may want to add a better explanation of pronunciation. - jredmond 16:49, 7 Sep 2004 (UTC)

I changed the rhyming pronunciation to compare to "boot" and "shoot" as opposed to "boot" and "root." "Root" is pronounced differently depending on region, and M-W and OED both list a pronunciation for "root" rhyming with "foot." That alternate pronunciation happens to be prevalent here in the upper Midwest of the USA.

Both pronunciations of root are commonly heard here in Minnesota, USA (rhymes with either foot or loot). I've never heard w00t pronounced so it rhymes with foot; it's always been the lute rhyme. Anybody heard it pronounced the other way? Changed the pronunciation back in the usages section; if you've heard it the other way (i.e. that w00t can rhyme with either pronunciation of root), change it back, but you should probably note the pronunciation discrepency in the article as well. --Matthew0028 06:08, 11 April 2006 (UTC)

I'm fairly sure it's closer to the original exclamation "Woo" that "Wew". It's true that 'wewt' is around, but the true "w00t" hasn't the "Ewww, gross" ("screw"?) tone of 'ew'. More accurate than "bewt", "lewt," "shewt" etc would be an owl's "Hoot". That is, the owl's hoot, not the human pronounciation, which may very well be "hewt" in some areas. I'm being picky, but I think that's w00t for ya. --Falos 19:52, 12 October 2006 (UTC)

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Please cite references

Quote:: w00t itself was first seen in 1994. The expression rose in popularity in the late 1990s and early 2000s.

It is generally a very bad practice to say "X was first seen in the year N". This statement is very difficult, if not impossible, to verify. If the original author would, please cite the 1994 reference as that would be helpful but still would only prove the earliest documented existence known to Wikipedia at this time. —RaD Man (talk) 19:19, 27 Jan 2005 (UTC)

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I emailed ThinkGeek to ask them to link to this entry. Kent Wang 14:05, 1 Jan 2004 (UTC)

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Woot, we figured it out

But we should keep the backronyms that enjoy some popularity, as long as we make clear that they're wrong. For instance I've seen "we owned the other team" and "wonderful loot" mentioned many places. --SPUI (talk) 22:09, 16 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Yikes, this page has changed dramatically since yesterday. From rap songs to "it originated in quake and people would jump up and down on the e-corpse" DanielHolth 30 June 2005 17:47 (UTC)

Usage

I believe that the Usage section needs significant edits and restructuring. Far too much of the information is repetitive and extraneous. People have been adding to it, and no one has been deleting, merging, or making it in any way readable. The entire section should probably be put into two paragraphs: spelling variations and situations where the word is used. Someone please consider doing this. --Ilyag 12:20, August 15, 2005 (UTC)

sarcasm

I won't butcher the article, but why is it so that you seem to think that w00t can't be spoken sarcastically? Afterall, just about everything can. There are no rules on how to use words, so people will naturally use them in whatever way they feel is appropriate. I'll say, though, that the word isn't always best off being used in that context, but just plain saying that NOBODY EVER uses w00t sarcastically is just plain simply a bad assumption based on nothing.

Hell, I've used it sarcastically. 81.15.144.177 08:43, 17 September 2005 (UTC)

Woop is used if w00t is needed to be expresed sarcastically, atleast, that's the way it is with the people I speak to. 5ii

Acronym for WE OWN THE OTHER TEAM. Used it nerdy online computer games.

what = w00t

It is my clear opinion as long time user of the internet and all that goes with it (irc etc.), that w00t is slang for what. This article does not mention this at all.

I think the article is misleading in the sense that it emphasizes much less used meanings of w00t, instead of the common mean "what".

e.G. "w00t that's awsome!".

OK. Now prove your theory. - jredmond 17:35, 13 December 2005 (UTC)

yeah, I' haven't ever heard of that either. McKay 22:45, 22 February 2006 (UTC)

I've heard it tons of times. Many people from sweden uses is in the form of "what". Also, the majority of the Fragbite-community (swedish community about eSport and stuff) uses "w00t" in a form of "what". Even I does it. So even if it's just a small aoumont of people says that w00t can mean "what" it's still a possible definition. Let it stay!
Klibbnisse 17:08, 2 July 2006 (UTC)

Until i came to this article i always thought that "w00t" was a distorted form of "what", usually associated with a welcome surprise, or playfulness about a predictable welcome outcome. --TiagoTiago (talk) 11:26, 27 April 2010 (UTC)

For what it's worth

Woot (w00t, whatever) has left whatever roots it sprung from. I have seen it online and heard it in real life from musicians, actors, and random teenagers. (For the record, I've always heard it pronounced to rhyme with shoot.)

I have also heard it used to mean yay, whoop-di-doo, and oh boy. One of the few things that Rob Schneider did really well was on SNL when he used the word dude to show an entire range of emotions and exclamations. Woot is approaching that level.

The use of words

In my opinion no one will ever know the derivative of the word w00t. There is proof from Usenet articles from the early 90s yet the term is commonly used with a different meaning to different people.

This word is used in many launguages not just english and I would probably say that in 10 people 3-4 would have a different meaning or a different everyday usage of the word.

Everyone I know uses it as a term for enjoyment or excitement as mentioned above.

w00t!

w00t is from rap

Give it ups. If Three 6 Mafia can win a damn Oscar, w00t can get the etymology it deserves ;-) Bobak 03:12, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

w00t

it has also been beleave to come from an online game called counter strike. and it's meaning stands for we owned other team (woot) buy because woot is not leet speek it is now w00t

Origin deletion

The section on the origin of "w00t" was recently deleted. I think this is probably fair, since a lot of it seemed to be speculation, it seemed repetitive, etc. However, I think some mention of the origin of w00t is needed. I'm not too sure what is fiction, fact, or well-known urban legend, so I'm not going to attempt to construct such a section. However, I think someone with a better understanding of this should put something (though preferably a bit more to the point than the long bulleted list that was previously on the page. Having a history (or noting that there is no clear history) is important to understand why the word has come into use. —Matthew0028

Talk page heading levels fixed

As discussed in Wikipedia:Manual of Style (headings),

Nest headings correctly, for the same reasons as above. The automatically-generated top-level heading of any page is a H1 which gives the article title. The headings within the article must therefore be H2, ie "==".

The heading levels in this talk page violate this, as "=" is used for the headings. I fixed the heading levels to match the wikipedia style. —Matthew0028 02:18, 18 April 2006 (UTC)

Origin

It comes from Miami Bass specifically, and the only place you hear it in real life is records "Woot there it is", Quad City DJs records, or Splack Plack records. But it's also just a kind of glottle stopped "whoop" you hear in bass music.

African Head-dress? Really?

"A Woot is a mask/helmet used by the Kuba tribe of Kasai-Occidental, in the Democratic Republic of the Congo to repesent the first ancestor. They are used in initiation ceremonies for boys, funerals, or rituals concerning the sacred king. They are made of fiber, cowries, beads and wood."

I think that this derivation counts as 'reading into it too much'. I'm going to take a wild guess and say that the influence of the Kuba tribe on e-culture has been fairly minimal. Shall I delete?

Older than the net perhaps

This is a comment from a history that extends from BEFORE the net and from personal use of the net since before the web existed via Pine and Vi unix mail editor, Telnet and the like. Could it be that the familiar wolf whistle, yes that politicially incorrect whistle that used to be given when men saw a girl they thought was awesome, that became the sound issued when something awesome happened, just got translated into text as 'woot woo'or 'woot' for short. Is this too simple an explanation...that a word was substituted for a whistle in an environment that excluded sound?

While it may be true that they sound alike, it is very difficult to tell. It does make sense as a whistle, though, at least spelling-wise. The problem is that I think its origins are lost in the same manner as the origins of a number of other things, simply because we don't know who first used it when. It might help to talk to the earliest Usenet people who we can find using the term and ask them if they know where it came from, but I suspect we'll discover that they don't know/remember. Titanium Dragon 01:13, 2 November 2006 (UTC)

This is a matter that is particularly muddled by the fact that as long as the internet exists, it is especially hard to say that anything at all existed before the internet. --64.132.163.178 19:10, 17 November 2006 (UTC)

Nothing more than a Dictionary definition?

This article states what the word means, then provides a (highly questionable) etymology. This is nothing more than a dictionary would be expected to do - should this artcle not move to Wiktionary?

Tompagenet 22:50, 25 November 2006 (UTC)

This article has been nominated for deletion.

You can comment here. -- weirdoactor ^t|c 18:07, 20 December 2006 (UTC)

Suggestion for incorporating theories

I think it's important to incorporate the speculative etymological meanings of woot that have been posed in past iterations of this wiki. However, there's no original research and we can't cite ratemyeverything, as it's clearly not a reasonable information source. I then wonder, has there been any published article about the origin of the word? I think it'd be nice if we could say "It has been speculated (reputable source), that w00t is a phrase with origins in linux hackers and d&d players." Kaddar (talk) 07:30, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

The Merriam-Webster news should probably be cited in the article. In it, it says that w00t is '[...] an acronym for "we owned the other team"' Bendono (talk) 08:08, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

Yeah, although merriam-webster didn't really go into detail to implied that we owned the other team came after the woot phrase, clearly it was used before first person games (see newsgroup usage statistics, use google for a page with some.), and therefore that is a backronym ... Kaddar (talk) 17:12, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

Pronunciation

How is it pronounced, were it to be spoken aloud? --68.173.15.204 (talk) 21:37, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

Woot -- Poydoo (talk) 19:27, 17 October 2019 (UTC)

Merriam-Webster

The dictionary considers the acronym of "we owned the other team" to be the origin.[1]--Jedravent (talk) 03:40, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

No, read it again. It says it's known to be an acronym for that phrase, but it doesn't say the phrase is the origin. As noted in the section immediately above, it is in fact a bacronym. Powers ^T 01:55, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

Well, it was the only etymology the dictionary provided, and it suggested that was the origin. But that's ok if it's not mentioned in the article. --Jedravent (talk) 00:26, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

It's important to note that the word does not actually appear in a published Merriam-Webster dictionary. Its only presence is on M-W's "Open Dictionary" project, which is similar to Wiktionary in that anyone can submit a word and definition. For the article, they mentioned a common folk etymology/backronym of the word, but the comment certainly doesn't carry the same weight as an etymological entry in the dictionary proper. Powers ^T 20:14, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

Okay, that makes sense. --Jedravent (talk) 21:10, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

Redirect

This article was redirected after an AFD and this was endorsed at a very recent DRV. If you wish to recreate this article my advice is to rewrite it in article space with sources and then submit this draft to DRV. Thank you. Spartaz ^Humbug! 16:35, 11 January 2008 (UTC)

76.27.241.69 (talk) 05:58, 30 August 2011 (UTC)

Suggested References

Grant Barrett's essay on the history of w00t [2] "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."

Thank you!

The article is now at: “The Real History and Origin of Woot and w00t”, and gives an authoritative and substantiated etymology, with further sources, deriving it from the 1993 rap song “Whoot, There It Is”, and presumably earlier from the chant on The Arsenio Hall Show.

I've incorporated this into the article in this edit, and similar material over at Wiktionary (w00t); thanks!

—Nils von Barth (nbarth) (talk) 05:02, 21 December 2015 (UTC)

Most of the folk etymologies should go

They are unsourced junk made up far more recently than the word itself. 86.128.50.60 (talk) 16:27, 14 February 2014 (UTC)

Defunct Reference

Looks like w00t.in is dead. No DNS entry found. Can anyone verify? Hmoulding (talk) 22:59, 4 December 2014 (UTC)

W00t

I remember from when I first started using W00t back when the internet was a baby, was what it stood for in chat was Wow 00(lookie or look at) that the W is Capped if extra excited and small if not W00t or w00t. the 0's look like eye balls. ````Sheryl — Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.179.185.164 (talk) 16:25, 6 January 2015 (UTC)

Move discussion in progress

There is a move discussion in progress on Talk:Woot (disambiguation) which affects this page. Please participate on that page and not in this talk page section. Thank you. —RMCD bot 17:14, 21 July 2015 (UTC)