This Just In - My Soul Crushed. More at 11.

w00t crowned word of the year by dictionary

Massachusetts-based Merriam-Webster Inc. said "w00t" — typically spelled with two zeros — reflects a new direction in the American language led by a generation raised on video games and cell phone text-messaging.

There are no words to express my feelings, you guys.

Wait, that's a lie. I have tons of words. And more importantly, they're actually WORDS. Not a random combination of letters and numbers that some illiterate fool made up. Ugh.

I'm not saying that you can't use the word. In fact, I don't mind the occasional 'woot' in the proper context (the online world). I'm pretty laid back on slang in instant messenger, or in games. Heck even in blogs it's fine (e.g. my liberal and annoying use of "ain't" and "y'all" throughout every entry I've ever posted). The purpose of language is to convey meaning in the clearest way possible. If your audience responds better to something informal and familiar, it's perfectly fine to use.

But Merriam-Webster does not need to be condoning such things, dammit. I don't care if you want publicity. You're dumbing down the actual rules of language for no reason whatsoever.

Merriam-Webster President John Morse said "w00t" reflected the growing use of numeric keyboards to type words. "People look for self-evident numeral-letter substitutions: 0 for O; 3 for E; 7 for T; and 4 for A," he said. "This is simply a different and more efficient way of representing the alphabetical character."

Um hi, Mr. President of Dictionaries? You know what is a more efficient way of representing an alphabetical character than using a number? USING THE ACTUAL CHARACTER.

Look what you just did, you made me write in all caps. I hate caps. Shouting on the Internet is just rude. But I am left with no alternatives. Let's break it down:

woot = four characters
w007 = four characters (that make no sense)

And to top it all off, if you read between the lines of what he's saying, it sounds like he's insinuating that the thing I hate most in the world is becoming acceptable. Namely "4" being the equivalent of "for" and "u" allowable for "you." It will be cold day in hell before I allow this to happen. I will wage war on all the 14 year-olds in the world, by myself if necessary.

Grammar rage, y'all.

God, it's that whole IDK MY BFF JILL? thing all over again.