reuters.com
"w00t," an expression of joy coined by online gamers, was crowned word of 2007 by Massachusetts-based Merriam-Webster. People look for self-evident numeral-letter substitutions: 0 for O; 3 for E; 7 for T; and 4 for A.
Online gamers often replace numbers and symbols with letters to form what Merriam-Webster calls an “esoteric computer hacker language” known as “l33t speak.” This translates into “leet”, which is short for “elite”.