Origins of Pwn?

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Ragenrok

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Ok, so today the dj of my local radio station brought up the word pwn, and within minutes him and people calling in started to talk about the word and started brining up ideas and theories of where it started or originated from.

So far the 3 I've heard are:

1. The Leter P is so close to the letter O when people would go to type own online the would constantly put pwn instead and it caught on from there.

2. The P repersents the word Pure, so pwn means Pure Ownage.

3. To tell someone you pwned them is to say you turn't them into a pawn of the game and they are worth nothing compard to you.

I have no idea where this word came from and figured I'd like to hear what your guys theories are on it.
 
I used to think it was "pawn" at first actually, but the first explination makes sense to me. sorta liek teh phrase "moist pro" - although I'm not sure that one has caught on yet, but again it was just typed too fast
 
#1 FTW

i believe it was Quake players that first started using it and then CS that made it so popular
 
Well, I've heard this origin from a lot of folk...

There was a map for Warcraft 3 where the map author made it so when someone was defeated the screen would read "Player-name got Owned!!" instead of the standard message. However, the author of the map released it without checking his spelling and released it as saying "Player-name got Pwned!" and so it began.
 
It definitely started much earlier than warcraft 3. It's probably just #1, "owned" was common, and pwn came about as a result. It's just the slow deformation of language like most slang(and most language). Pwned is pretty much interchangable with owned as it is.
 
bigted said:
#1 FTW

i believe it was Quake players that first started using it and then CS that made it so popular
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We have a winner. It was a Quake player who started using it first, and it was a typo.
 
OK, i think we have established its origins so the question is..how do you pronounce it?


Wikipedia lists a wide range of pronounciations for the word. Personally I like Pone, the way they pronounced it on the WoW South Park episode.



Edit: I once saw a guy on the freeway with PWN as his license plate (he was driving a VW bug)
 
I dont know where it originated (nor do i care) but i hate that word and all the 14yr olds that use it.
 
MadMarkJD said:
OK, i think we have established its origins so the question is..how do you pronounce it?


Wikipedia lists a wide range of pronounciations for the word. Personally I like Pone, the way they pronounced it on the WoW South Park episode.
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Your not really suppose to pronounce it, its only supposed to be used on the Internet. Another example of Internet slang is w00t. ANd by God if anybody says that in person they should be shot...lol
 
Shottah_king said:
Another example of Internet slang is w00t. ANd by God if anybody says that in person they should be shot...lol
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Start firing 'cause me, my brother and my wife use it all the time. :( I don't like being shot by anonymous, random internet forum user name people. :mad:
 
Same thing with "teh".

It's funny taht mistypes become part of common internet vernacular.
 
Shottah_king said:
Your not really suppose to pronounce it, its only supposed to be used on the Internet. Another example of Internet slang is w00t. ANd by God if anybody says that in person they should be shot...lol
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Your telling me that you've never blurted it out while playing a game and doing awesomeness? alone or with friends? I call bullshit :)
 
xerus` said:
Well, I've heard this origin from a lot of folk...

There was a map for Warcraft 3 where the map author made it so when someone was defeated the screen would read "Player-name got Owned!!" instead of the standard message. However, the author of the map released it without checking his spelling and released it as saying "Player-name got Pwned!" and so it began.
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pwn was out long before warcraft 3 that i can recall.


everyone is going to claim it was them who did it, but i am sure plenty if people were doing it by accident and then it caught on, i dont think any one person is responsible.
same now with the million variations of "own" that are out there.
 
Obviously number one. Most idiots on the internet are far from creative enough to think something up. Even worse are the sheepy morons who copy all this misspelled shit thinking it's cool.

"w00t!" Are you actually supposed to read that as "woot"?
"zomg!" Do people really actually say, "zomg"? I guess someone went to type "omg" and fucked it up with their fat cheesy fingers.

Every time I see people use this retarded shit it just makes me ignore anything they have to say. It clearly won't be new, original, or otherwise worth reading.

Sorry to be bitter, but it had to be said. :eek:
 
MrGuvernment said:
pwn was out long before warcraft 3 that i can recall.


everyone is going to claim it was them who did it, but i am sure plenty if people were doing it by accident and then it caught on, i dont think any one person is responsible.
same now with the million variations of "own" that are out there.
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Maybe, I just dont remember seeing it at all until around that era.
 
There is a crazy old man with long white hair who wears a long, dirty robe and lives in a bunker 2 miles beneath a salt mine in Zimbabwe. In this bunker, there are miles of optical cable which run from computers powerful beyond the limits of Moore's Law to all of the individual economies of the world. From a twist on a knob on one of these computers, this man can break the economies of whole continents at will. This man occasionally tests the limits of human stupidity by creating new trends or products and seeing how many people take it up unquestioningly. Among his productions are the habit of changing every occurrence of the word "France" to "Freedom," Bottled Water, Flavored Water, the commercial success of Michael Bay, and the word "pwn."
 
xerus` said:
Well, I've heard this origin from a lot of folk...

There was a map for Warcraft 3 where the map author made it so when someone was defeated the screen would read "Player-name got Owned!!" instead of the standard message. However, the author of the map released it without checking his spelling and released it as saying "Player-name got Pwned!" and so it began.
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I've heard that one too
 
Alot of dumbass' in ut2004 used "Pure Ownage". I could just see them giggling and shifting in their chairs. So naturally that is what i thought pwn was. But you can't just say pwn! PWNED!!!11 PWNAGED!!! DU PWN'd Masta!
 
"Pwn" is simply a bastardization of "own" which became popular due to frequent misspelling because the p and o keys are close together, other exampls are kik instead of lol where the user is typing 1 key over by accident.
 
I heard that in a wacraft 3 map when you lost, it says You just got pwned, it was a typo and now we have pwned pwn pawn etc..
EDIT: Someone beat me to it, can anyone confirm that pwn was around before wc3?
 
spine said:
Obviously number one. Most idiots on the internet are far from creative enough to think something up. Even worse are the sheepy morons who copy all this misspelled shit thinking it's cool.

"w00t!" Are you actually supposed to read that as "woot"?
"zomg!" Do people really actually say, "zomg"? I guess someone went to type "omg" and fucked it up with their fat cheesy fingers.

Every time I see people use this retarded shit it just makes me ignore anything they have to say. It clearly won't be new, original, or otherwise worth reading.

Sorry to be bitter, but it had to be said. :eek:
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100 Billiion% better than cussing though.
 
owned => pwned (p is right next to o, common typo) => pwnt (shortening it even further... i dont know why)

I guess its better than leet speek *shrug*
 
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