The origins of woot!

According to the fabulous Wikipedia, the perfect go-to source for this kind of information, the exclamation "woot" started as a Dungeons and Dragons bit of jargon contracting the phrase, "Wow! Loot!" and quickly evolved into an expression of joy.

Hackers may be familiar with w00t as a term for root or admin access to a computer, according to the Urban Dictionary.

And careful readers of The Canterbury Tales will find Chaucer using it to mean "know," as he did in line 849 of "The Wife of Bath's Tale" ("For wel I woot thy pacience is gon"), again according to Wikipedia.

Woot!

Woot!

Among the noveling this month the trend seems to be the exclamation WOOT! Every few posts someone lets one out. Funny!

Fun to be on this side of the big goal. Kicking back tonight after 3,400 words today. Ending, what ending? Oh, that ending....

Tiny rant

[on soapbox]
You people!

(And you know who you are!)

Oh, sure, you're all supportive when we talk about "leaving the inner editor behind" and writing "shitty first drafts." But then I get to 48,000 words and you're all clamoring to read the 50,000 words! Who said this was anything to read? It's certainly been something to write, but may I gently inform you that a) it's not finished and b) it's a rough draft. So give me walla walla more minutes so I can make it into something. Now it's only almost something. I'm just starting to be able to say what it's really about, 50,000 words into the project. Holy cow!

And there's no need to assume I'll drop everything after the 30th. And this part even ties into my story: There's simply no need for any talk about people with whips to stand over me next month. I didn't seem to need that kind of "prodding" this month, did I?

Thank you for your compassion.
[off soapbox]


p.s. feel free to borrow this rant and adapt it to your own purposes as needed.

-----------
Nanowrimo 2006: Mix Tapes for Boys and Girls
48,000 words and counting....