TT4 is so with it:

Do Americans have different cell phone keyboards? The numeral-letter substitution in w00t is anything but self-evident to me. It's much easier and faster to type letters than numbers on my Finnish mobile phone.

On a different note, one of my cousins told me that she joined a social networking site a few weeks ago. Last weekend I finally came around to facebook her and I actually found a nice picture of her. Not really my thing - facebook, that is.

It's probably hard to do on a phone indeed, but it's not something people use in text messages, is it? It's 1337 5p3ak. (Used originally by hackers and gamers, then by the general geek community.)

Well, I didn't even know what "woot" meant, or indeed that such a word existed except perhaps as an onomatopeic representation of a train horn, until I read that article, so I guess I was well out of range of "w00t".

it has an older history than online gaming apparently (something to do with an archaic computer platform language??) but i guess in its current usage the w00t makes sense

This is the part that got me:
"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 - what? I must be living in fairyland because the only time i ever see that happening is on personalised vanity plates on cars?

5N34k3R F15H would just look strange. Ok every once in a while it happens with possible 1 to 'hide' a swear word but surely not as a matter of course? I quite liked how it was referred to as a more efficient way ...

I guess if you are only using a numeric keyboard it would be more efficient. Otherwise it is just another 10 extra characters i would have to learn to put in words. Grrr

"It's much easier and faster to type letters than numbers on my Finnish mobile phone."

If I have to write several numbers in a row while texting, I turn on numbers on my phone by pressing # for a while.

#5 - That's right. But typing words like w00t, with alternating letters and numerals, strikes me as cumbersome on a cell phone keyboard.
>Merriam-Webster President John Morse said "w00t" reflected the growing use of numeric keyboards to type words.
>Online gamers often replace numbers and symbols with letters to form what Merriam-Webster calls an "esoteric computer hacker language"

I don't really get this. What numeric keyboards was he referring to, if he wasn't talking about cell phones? And why would hackers and gamers use such arcane keyboards? On the other hand, when a keyboard not only has numbers, but also the letters w and t, then it will have the other 24 letters of the alphabet as well. In this case, it wouldn't be a numerical keyboard, no? By the way, even my grandfather could write w00t on his ancient typewriter, if he felt like it.

Replacing letters by numerals seems a bit pretentious in a geeky way, this has nothing to do with keyboards.

"But typing words like w00t, with alternating letters and numerals, strikes me as cumbersome on a cell phone keyboard."

Yeah, I agree. In words like that I double click the dictionary off and go on the "traditional mode" of writing. I haven't come up with a better way.

Completely cumbersome. And I don't know what numerical keyboards Merriam-Webster guy is talking about.

But I've spent a few years in Geekville (for work), and I can report that w00t is used by geeks worldwide. As are n00b (newbie; person who is ignorant about something), j00 (you), PWND (roughly translated: "you lose"), 4ND 5TUPiD WRi7iNG 7H47 L00K5 LiK3 7Hi5.

This has to be distinguished from txt msg language that u cnt rd bt cn bliv is fastr 2 typ.