New word! New word!

I was visiting homestarrunner.com this morning (if you haven't been there, surf there now and visit for a while; I'll just wait here. .. dum de dum dum.. la la la... hmm hmmm HMMMMM hmm hmm hmmmmm... dah doo ba-doo-WAAH! It must have been moonglow, way up in the blue... Oh! you're back... heh heh, wasn't expecting you back quite so soon)

There, wasn't that fun?

Anyhoo, I was watching one of the Teen Girl Squad cartoons, and discovered "woot", as spoken by the cartoon versions of Henry Rollins, Abraham Lincoln and George Washington (holding an axe). Being the keen student of etymology - and yes, also being the geek - that I am, I quickly Googled the term and promptly found four widely-varying theories as to the origin and meaning of the term. In the end, everyone seems to agree that it's a bit of a synonym for "hey cool!" or "wow" or some generic exclamation of pleased surprise (or should that be surprised pleasure?). So woot it is from now on, as in "Woot! I've just learned another bit of geek-speak!"