What's with wOOt!

[Nathaniel Firethorn]

This seems to be the newest Internet meme. Wherditcumfrum?

- NF

[charby]

http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=woot

1. woot
Woot originated as a hacker term for root (or administrative) access to a computer. However, with the term as coincides with the gamer term, "w00t".

"w00t" was originally an trunicated expression common among players of Dungeons and Dragons tabletop role-playing game for "Wow, loot!" Thus the term passed into the net-culture where it thrived in video game communities and lost its original meaning and is used simply as a term of excitement."I defeated the dark sorcerer! Woot!"

"woot! i r teh flagmastar!" (Think Tribes)

"Woot, I pwnzed this dude's boxen!'
by Weatherlight Apr 4, 2004

2. woot

See also wOOt, w00t and WOOT

1) An interjection similar to "YAYE!" or "Woohoo!" used to express joy or excitement, usually about some kind of accomplishment. Primarily used by gamers, spreading rapidly to anyone who chats online

Gaming origins: We Owned the Other Team
or Wonderful Loot (Everquest gaming slang)

2) To express agreement

3) As an acronym, can mean Waste of Our Time or Way Out of Topic (online forums) Less common.1)woot! I got an A on this test.

2)Robyn: Eric is such a tool. Let's put packing peanuts in his desk.
Stefanie: woot!

[Justin]

Wikipedia knows all!

*insert standard disclaimer about wikipedia being open to editing by anyone with an internet connection ->|here|<-*

[K Frame]

God, so informative, yet so totally geekish!

[Harold Tuttle]

95 south
Woot there it is!

"w00t!" originated via music and culture. In 1993, two songs with 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. These songs borrowed the topic of the previous summer's #3 smash hit "Baby Got Back" by Sir Mix-A-Lot. Similar phrases quickly showed up on the Internet in discussion of the songs and in similar discussion in the newsgroups alt.rap and rec.music.

http://www.answers.com/topic/w00t

[LawDog]

*sigh*

God woot!  A common exclamation in Medieval England, meaning, literally, "God knows!", or as we would say, "God only knows".  

Much as the exclamations "God's truth!" became "Struth", "God's wounds!" became "Zounds", and "God's hooks!" (Crucifixion nails) became "Gadzooks"; "God woot!" became simply "Woot!"

AD&D'ers, Renaissance Faire types and LARPers began using Ye Olde Exclamations when in character, when they transferred to on-line Role Playing, they brought the anachronistic exclamations with them.

Today, "Woot" is suffering much the same as "*expletive deleted*ck".  

People will go out of their way to to state that "*expletive deleted*ck" is actually an acronym for "For Unlawful Carnal Knowledge", or "Fornication Under Consent of King" or someother such patterfluff; and then will tell you that "Woot" is an acronym for "We Owned Other Team".

Codswallop.  Codswallop, codswallop, codswallop.  

Both "Woot" and "*expletive deleted*ck" are good Anglo-Saxon words stretching back several centuries before the concept of acronyms oozed it's slimy way through someones' forebrain.

LawDog

[Standing Wolf]

I've always believed if it was good enough for Chaucer, it's probably good enough for me.