Re: Anyone see this?

Andreas Johansson wrote:
> Quoting Paul Bennett <paul-bennett@...>:
>
>
>>On Fri, 12 Dec 2003 18:23:27 -0500, Greg Johnston
>><greg.johnstons@...> wrote:
>>
>>
>>>>Woohoo!
>>>
>>>I believe the correct term for the occasion would be "WOOOOOT!". Or maybe
>>>I'm just American...
>>
>>I think the accepted spelling is |w00t|, with zeroes. One of those odd
>>little bits of l33t that have leaked into moderately-mainstream online
>>culture. Unless of course, |woot| as an interjection previously existed in
>>American English, and I never became aware of it until I saw it online.
>
> Altho I'm generally very much in favour of linguistic creativity, "l33t speak"
> (not to mention "1337" ..) has always left me cold. I'm all for shortenings
> and opaque acronyms, but respelling stuff for it's own sake somehow does
> strike me as unnifty and anticommunicative. The later is no doubt a feature
> rather than a bug - it helps distinguishing the in people from the out people -
>  but I don't like it anyway.
AIUI, it originally developed as a way to dodge features on some BBSes
that would kick you off for swearing. The auto-kick feature wouldn't
recognize, say, "5h17".

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