World Wide Words

Woot! I've seen a couple of family bloggers use this term so when I saw it on one of the nonfamily blogs I read from time to time, it caught my eye. If you click on the title of the post, it will lead you to that site, if you like to read about words.


W00t is spelled with a couple of zeroes in the middle but it’s said as “woot”. It’s a small cry of joy, perhaps after completing a task, after besting an opponent, or for no reason at all. Merriam-Webster says, “It became popular in online gaming as part of what is known as l33t (‘leet’, or ‘elite’) speak, an esoteric computer hacker language in which numbers and symbols are put together to look like letters.”

Its origins are disputed. Some say it’s a blend from the cry Wow! Loot!, one that might be uttered when a Dungeons & Dragons player came across treasure; Merriam-Webster notes that it has been said to be an acronym for we owned the other team (meaning that our team bested them utterly); others argue that it derives from the Scots hoot!, which really is a bit of a hoot, since the Oxford English Dictionary describes that as an “ejaculation expressing dissatisfaction with, or impatient and somewhat contemptuous dismissal of, a statement or notion”, which hardly fits the context.

Weather UPdate

I read the weather report for today and it said "80% chance of winter precipitation." What???? Not snow, not sleet, not rain or hail, just WINTER PRECIPITATION?" I found out what that meant today. It started raining, then turned to pouring slush, then snow, hail and sleet and ending up with snow again. That about covers it for precip as far as I can tell. What's missing?

What are the Odds?

So this week has been something of a challenge. Maybe a better word would be my worst nightmare come true. I have an English class for high school seniors called Fundamentals of English. I'm suppose to teach reading and writing for practical, day to day uses. Someone, not me, decided that the students need to learn how to balance a checkbook. "So do I," I thought. "But I've got the teacher's manual, so I can struggle through, maybe, if I really have to, and I guess if the students need it; I really have to." So we do the first entry together and I tell them to do the rest on their own. How hard can it be?

"Mark writes check 101 to Lacey's Department store $39.56 for sheets. Write the check and put it in the outgoing mailbox. Write the amount in the check register and calculate the balance. Get form 202 from the back of the documents and forms section of the work book and find Mark's paycheck from Antwan's Car Parts and endorse the check and fill out the deposit slip and put it in the outgoing mailbox; be sure to record the transaction in the check register. Mark needs dishes and writes check 102 to . . .. . . "

I was busy helping one of the students and didn't realized that none of them really knew what do to until they had already messed up their check registers until they looked like mine. Time for part deux of the nightmare. I haul out the whiteboard so that I can demonstrate for the whole class as we try to make sense of the checkbook register. I hate writing on the board in front of the class, the memory of a brave sixth grader's voice saying, "Ms. Taylor, we can't read your writing," is always in my ear when I write on the board, even though I have made a conscious effort to improve my handwriting. Chalkboards were bad enough. The dust was everywhere and your hands and clothes got covered with it. But whiteboards are worse. The markers have an odor that leaves me literaly speechless. It causes my throat to close up and if I have to write too long, I lose my voice altogether. Today wasn't too long so I had enough voice to say, "Good Job, Guys."

Thankfully, we all got our checkbook registers straighted out, looking nothing like the teacher's manual, but miraculously all balanced.

One of the students spoke the truth when she said, " I hate this. Debit cards are so much easier!"

Braided Rug

I went to the Christmas crafts fair in Colstrip yesterday and got to spend some time with a few friends while starting my Christmas shopping. To tell the truth, the main reason for making the trip was to see my friends. I didn't find too many Christams gifts, and if I did I could hardly mention it here, could I? I did find a new braided rug for the kitchen. I want to make it clear that I'm not replacing an old rug, it's just that I finally found a rug I like at a time when I remembered that I wanted a rug to put in front of the kitchen sink to stand on when washing the dishes. It's got the right colors for the kitchen and it really is cushy to stand on.

It was a nice winter day to drive somewhere. It was snowing just enough to look wintry but not enough to make the roads slick. Today is clear again and with a dusting of snow it is starting to get me in the holiday spirit. Putting up the Christmas tree helped a little too. Things will start getting hectic at work, not because of the holiday season, but because of the basketball season. Basketball is taken very seriously where I work and students who normally don't care about their grades will suddenly care about little else, except for the aforementioned basketball of course.