w00t! w00t!

Based on previous words of the year, Merriam-Webster's word of the year for 2007 has a lot of people puzzled, according to The New York Times blog The Lede.

w00t, typically spelled with zeroes, is defined as "an expression of joy coined by online gamers."

GOOD Magazine sums sentiments up thusly: "Seriously? Last year's word, truthiness, captured the profound epistemological uncertainty of our time. A synonym for "yay" that you use "for no reason at all" just doesn’t have the same cultural heft."

Boing Boing, which has apparently heard of the term, took issue with Webster's tardiness. "Shouldn't W00T be the new word for 2002? It's so five years ago!"

For its part, the American Dialect Society expressed disappointment that w00t was limited to such a small community and is unlikely to spread.