Learn English – In Gary Bernhardt’s talk about Ruby and JavaScript surprises, what does “wat” mean

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There's a video of a conference presentation by Gary Bernhardt about surprising behavior in the Ruby and JavaScript computer programming languages.

At the beginning of the video, Seth asks the audience:

You guys know what 'wat' means?"

[He makes a 'wat' sound. He also shows a silly photo of a donkey, perhaps on a boat, wearing some waterproof clothing and holding a cat.]

Someone from the audience replies with some reply which is inaudible in the video.

Seth tells the audience member:

Exactly, exactly.

Well, what does "wat" mean? I did a Web search for the query [ wat sound ], but didn't get any answer.

Best Answer

Unforgettableid is correct, it is synonymous with "what" as in exclaiming surprise or bewilderment at a given situation.

I disagree somewhat with the quoted material, however, which states that 'wat' arrived in its current shortened form just for ease of typing.

Chat slang is a method of typing long words and phrases as short one-to-four letter words and is also used by people who have difficulties spelling. For example, instead of typing out "are", someone may only type "r." Although chat slang can be easier for you and sometimes faster to type, it makes it difficult to read and most people will ignore you.

I think the 'h' gets dropped precisely because it connotes a more sound-like visceral reaction.

I believe that the person exclaiming 'wat' is such a state of surprise that they are participating more in sound than language and want to directly connote this feeling to the reader in a kind of playful tongue-and-cheek way. My answer might be too in the realm of speculation or linguistics but maybe not, I'll give it a go.

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