w00t!

As frequently happens, I was looking up something entirely different in the Merriam-Webster Dictionary online when I came across its 2007 Word of the Year contest. WORD contest? Irresistible to an etymology freak…(more on the contest here: http://tinyurl.com/yu5rfv).

The winner for 2007 was “w00t,” an expression of happiness or excitement, usually after a victory of some sort, used in a similar way to woohoo or yay! On Urbandictionary.com I read the following: “’w00t’ was originally an truncated expression common among players of Dungeons and Dragons tabletop role-playing game for ‘Wow, loot!’"

One of the runners-up was “sardoodledom,” which means a play with a contrived melodramatic plot. George Bernard Shaw invented this term while criticizing one of the plays by Victorien Sardou, a 19th century French playwright. The word is thus a composite: Sardou-doodle-dom. On World Wide Words (fantastic website: http://tinyurl.com/avg8t) I read that in the 2007 U.S. National Spelling Bee, this word gave a case of the giggles to one of the young contestants. I can see why…

Another favourite of mine: the adjective "Pecksniffian," which means "unctuously hypocritical." We also have the noun “Pecksniffery.” Love it! From World Wide Words, we learn, or remember!, that Seth Pecksniff, a land surveyor and architect in Dickens’ Martin Chuzzlewit, “though in appearance the most upright of men who prated about high moral principles and benevolence, was an awful hypocrite, full of meanness and treachery.” Ah yes.

Okay, that’s enough etaoin shrdlu for today! 

1 Comment

  1. hi margaret,

    i came across your website while doing some research on curcumin today. wow, i am so glad to find all the information that you have amassed on health, especially on curcumin. i am glad to see that people like yourself are seeing good results with curcumin–confirming the perceived health benefits in east and south asian medicine.

    even though your website is about fighting myeloma, your findings are beneficial to health in general.

    i have been taking standardized curcumin for health and was looking for ways to increase bioavailability without using excessive piperine. i am glad to see that moderate heat and fat work as well.

    i am a curry lover and am happy to hear that the curcumin (tumeric), capsaicin (hot peppers), piperine (black pepper), ginger, garlic and fat, all work together for health (taking care not to go overboard with the fat). i am probably going to start adding green tea leaves to my curry for the EGCG benefit. i read a study that bioavailability of EGCG is increased with capsaicin. also, i just read about that study you posted bout EGCG curcumin.

    anyways, keep up the great work and i with you continued health! your site is helping many people in the world and is giving tons of people hope. also, for people like me, it’s helping me live a healthier lifestyle, so the preventative effect is immense.

    take care! and send me a email anytime!

    -ryan

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