Word of the Month: Newbie Noob

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While Brajana at Mend Pet likes to help broaden our vocabulary with her WoW Word of the Week posts, we like to take a look each month at a little bit of gamer vernacular history.  (We do enjoy her posts and if you haven’t checked them out yet, I suggest you do so!)

Newbie/Noob

We've all seen this one.  Heck, we've probably all used it at one time or another.  But where did it come from?  The answer may surprise you.  The term ‘newbie' has been around long before MMO's and cyberspace.  It was actually used as a term in British public schools and the miltary to mean “new boy” or a new soldier in the unit.

This fits pretty well with the objective meaning of the word newbie.  With the advent of cyberspace interactions, it was a term used to identify someone new.  Often those who are new are given some slack for making mistakes.  However, that takes us into some of the variations of the word newbie.

Noob, N00b, Nub, Newb, Nublet, Nubcake, etc.

These variations have come about as the term began to mutate into derogatory connotations.  Someone makes lots of mistakes? They are a noob.  Someone keeps making said mistakes despite solutions being given? Noob.  They can't hold aggro as a tank? Nub.  They can't keep the group healed? Newb.  They pull aggro or break crowd control? Nubcake.

There is no set level limit for when someone stops being a Newbie and turns into a Noob.  However, there is a certain point where other players see a person's level and their mistakes are no longer seen as innocent.  Instead, they begin to use the term to mean they are ignorant about how to play despite having been in the game for “long enough.”

Interesting Sidenote:

As I was typing up this draft, Sideshow asked if I saw the article about Noob being proposed to be added to the dictionary.  He thought that had been my inspiration.  It hadn't been, but how… interesting.

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