Gosu is a Korean word that served as a corrupted interlocutor creating the acronym GOAT to mean greatest of all
time. This occurred in 2000 at a professional Starcraft tournament at UC Berkeley hosted by the computer science department. The tournament champion was a
player with the handle "goat" At the presentation of the Champion's
cup the crowd started chanting "gosu! gosu!" which prompted started the following dialogue:
Corporate Sponsor presenting Cup: "what does gosu mean?"
CS Student Representative: not fluent it means
like very talented. The best talent you can be.
Corporate Sponsor: speaking to goat well you are certainly very talented. The best I have seen. And if you're the best at UC Berkeley you're probably the best in general. Can you tell us why your handle is goat?
GOAT: goats are
cool I guess. I was one of the first
people on
AOL and had the email address goat@
aol.com. I wish I had kept it.
Corporate Sponsor: Oh we thought it was an acronym
Someone in Crowd: GREATEST OF ALL
TIME!
GOAT: And that too.
UC Berkeley at that
time had a T-3 line at a time
people were using dial up. The technology was unprecedent for a University and was one of only three in the nation. (Federal Government, NASA). Thus, GOAT as an acronym became slang in the computer science department at Berkeley and Stanford before the creation of a meaningful internet culture
the phrase goat meaning "greatest of all
time" stems from a corruption of the interlocutor GOSU. A Starcraft champion with the
handle goat won a professional tournament and when someone asked is goat an acronym he replied 'gosu was taken' and someone in the crowd screamed "GREATEST OF ALL
TIME."