On the nature of newb and noob

[The Director]

On the nature of newb and noob.

 

A rant by The Director

 

Little bored, so thought I'd have a little bit of a rant.

 

Today I played a game of snipers on Halo Reach, and a player with a lower rank called a player who was a forerunner (I think, don't particularly recall) a noob. The reason he did this was because said player was running around getting "pwnd" and teabagging when he got kills, as a noob does. What caught my immediate attention was that he actually specified the spelling of the word "noob". This led to a discussion on the difference in the usage of the slang, "newb" and "noob".

 

A good chunk of players think that both words are the same, and one is intentionally misspelled to make it more "l337". However, the l337 for newb is either n3vv8 or n0ob (or n0ob or n00b). Not "noob". Since these words are slang, their definitions are "open market" which means that they have rather vague definitions to begin with, and there is not strict criteria for defining them.

 

What a lot of players (a decent amount, at any rate) think is that both words have separate meanings.

 

Newb: A slang term used to describe one that is new to something.

 

Noob: A person that is not skilled or is bad at something.

 

By these definitions, the words noob and newb become different, and can be used for a more accurate description. For instance, "Dude, this guy has been playing for 300 hours but has a .02 k/d. He's such a noob." and "You have to forgive my friend, he's never played Halo before so he's a newb".

 

What would be incorrect by this standard, is calling an experienced person/player a "newb". However, it would still be correct to call a new person/player a "noob". Now you can have fun with them, by linking them up for even "sicker burns", such as "you are the noobest noob newb to ever play this game!"

 

Thoughts, opinions?

[Turkishxroyal]

noob! haha thanks for the clarification!

[LordReaper]

lol i didnt know there was diff. terms of the word noob-newb but i dont see why anyone would do that. "granted i know i have to admit i do it when i get mad lol" but i dont use a mic so ya, tho i hate teabaggers that is just by far childish.but now i know some of the diff terms to noob lol.

[N@han FloreZ]

Hmmmm so you are obviously against the noobiness newbie noob association of noobtology? AKA this guy?