[Omega]

To "pwn" is to Own. People say "pwn" because when they are trying to say "own" they accidentally press the "P" button right next to the "O" button....(Wow, a 12 year old teaching a 14 year old :ph34r:)

[Colt the earth adept]

yeah I hate that even when ya get twichy fingers like me and sometimes I'll type a letter before another letter.

[Mallick]

No, Omega, you are completely wrong. We're making fun of n00bs who can't type. =)

[Neo]

your wrong omega, typing pwn isn't an accident. pwn is pown, just another word for owning.
owning was the first gaming madness, after a while people got bored, and changed it to powning.. then they changed it back to owning. now we get everything, even the so-called-made-up-by-anubis word spooning.

so you are owned, powned and spooned =D

[Colt the earth adept]

Or theres also the other way to say it liek peopel do on runescape it's :p00ned and own3d, not very exciting but it's new.

[Mallick]

Neo_Genesis, on Apr 28 2005, 12:34 PM, said:

your wrong omega, typing pwn isn't an accident. pwn is pown, just another word for owning.
owning was the first gaming madness, after a while people got bored, and changed it to powning.. then they changed it back to owning. now we get everything, even the so-called-made-up-by-anubis word spooning.

so you are owned, powned and spooned =D

"Own3d" is adding a leet E.

Also, Neo, that's half correct, and half in correct. =D

[Neo]

well, I am less aware of things known in the forums buiseness (sp?), but in my little gaming world, excisting only of CoD:UO and Lineage 2, I think my statements are right =P

[Golden Legacy]

"Pwn" is yet another example of the ridicule that is online expressions, as are "pwned", "pwn3d", and all other variations of it. It is supposed to symbolize a certain victory or superiority over others in a somewhat casual, slang, and humorous form.

[Venus_Man1]

Golden Legacy, on Apr 28 2005, 03:53 PM, said:

"Pwn" is yet another example of the ridicule that is online expressions, as are "pwned", "pwn3d", and all other variations of it. It is supposed to symbolize a certain victory or superiority over others in a somewhat casual, slang, and humorous form.

I sometimes wish I could be as smart as you. About the pwn thing? I have no idea who made it. Some idiot made it up, I guess.

[Elliott]

It's just something internet geeks use to try and sounds as though they know something =/ . Very much like leet etc.

[Nick Presta]

Guys, in Quake/Doom/Starcraft, someone created a custom map that was supposed to say "YOU WERE OWNED" whenever someone killed you. Instead, they made a spelling mistake saying "YOU WERE PWNED" and it erupted from there.

[Omega]

Neo_Genesis, on Apr 28 2005, 08:34 PM, said:

your wrong omega, typing pwn isn't an accident. pwn is pown, just another word for owning.
owning was the first gaming madness, after a while people got bored, and changed it to powning.. then they changed it back to owning. now we get everything, even the so-called-made-up-by-anubis word spooning.

so you are owned, powned and spooned =D

I know that! I type pwn on purpose too you know! And you are fork'd!

[Andross]

You stole mine! Forkd!
© Andross and all accompanying aliases and/or legal names FOREVAH!

As nick mentioned, it was a spelling mistake that turned into a LUE Fad pretty much. It was to make fun of the guy. Some people use it seriously, but it's more often used just as ridicule.

[Nemphtis]

Azathoth II, on Apr 28 2005, 03:58 PM, said:

What is "Pwn"? I have seen many on GSSF who write that. :ph34r:

What a n00b. I hope he doesn't ask what a n00b is too. ;)

[Nemphtis]

Yes, we've now established you are a n00b. Now, let's move onto the phase two where you learn how I pwn you.

I am Anubis, this is Pwnage, Anubis + Pwnage = You've been Pwned.

It's quite simple really, there's no reason to question it, it's just a part of everyone life. I pwn them. ;D

[Tachyon360]

The origins of the word "pwn" date back to the early days of online first person shooters. Since the "o" and "p" are near each other, it's not difficult to have a small finger slip when you're typing quickly just before running into a heated battle. It happened somewhat frequently, and it just kinda stuck.

Properly, it's pronounced like "own," but people these days seem pronounce the text as they see it on the screen, so now that the word is becoming more commonly pronouced "p'own" or "poon". Kinda irritating, but that's just the way things go.

It was not originally intentional, the "p" was not originally pronounced, and was not born in the fiery bowels of the 40l3rz' culture of misspelling words (though it did become popular there). Now that that's settled, I can go to bed.

[Nemphtis]

Actually, the origins of the word Pwn stemmed from Warcraft, the developers in the game used to have this message that came up that said "0WNED!". One of the programmers accidentally replaced the O with a P and so it popped out as "PWNED!".

After that it just caught on, people thought it was an actual word and started using it, that's the REAL origins.

[Tachyon360]

There are different stories, but when you look at the evidence, the ones that involve games from about a decade ago seem to be the most accurate. I've heard the Warcraft one before, but the FPS one holds more water IMO.

And yes, I do realize that this thread is more or less dead.

[Papercut]

To settle this: when in doubt, turn to Wikipedia = "Pwn"

[Echo_djinn]

True event.
I was running to my first period class because I was late(for the 3rd time this week) and stopped by the water fountain near my class to get a drink. I looked up to see a poster above the fountain and written over it was the word"PWNED". Now I came here to see a question about the it?!? Coincidence.

[Tachyon360]

Papercut, on May 11 2005, 07:22 PM, said:

To settle this: when in doubt, turn to Wikipedia = "Pwn"

Any idiot can post on Wikipedia. The etymology of pwn is apparently just a big collection of all the stories out there, but be weary with other things, since it's very easy to come across misinformation.

[Papercut]

The internet itself is full of misinformation, at least with Wikipedia you have the possibility that someone who knows better will come along and fix whatever is wrong with what the previous person posted.

[Someone Else]

nick1presta, on Apr 28 2005, 03:32 PM, said:

Guys, in Quake/Doom/Starcraft, someone created a custom map that was supposed to say "YOU WERE OWNED" whenever someone killed you. Instead, they made a spelling mistake saying "YOU WERE PWNED" and it erupted from there.

That sounds most likely than any other variation of it. I thought it'd be something like that.

Well, in the mean time, where did 1337 come from? From my side of the story, 1337 stands for leet which is a stupid way to say elite. =/

I d0n'7 533 h0w 7yping li3k 7hi5 m4k35 y0u 3lit3 th0ugh.

(I don't see how typing like this makes you elite, though.)

[Elliott]

It's for internet nerds who think by posting letters as numbers that they will confuse non-internet nerd who are just using the web for general things. As for it's origins I dunno.

[Tachyon360]

It was used back in the day by the hacker community to throw off search engines that searched for specific words. If someone would post "expl0its" in place of "exploits" every single time, the average user would not be able to find the site by searching for "exploits".

At least that's how one of the stories go, though most aren't too different. The rest is just one gray mess of it gradually becoming less and less legible and slowly entering mainstream use, to be forever know as 1337 5p34|<.

[Meddyan]

Yeah, thats about it. It was also used in Emails as well, you changed the letter to its normal counter-part and there it was, it was to avoid having that Email grabbed by a Email searching/crawling bot thingy and having that Email fed spam, instead it got the non-existant 1337 Email rather than the real one.

[Black Mage]

most of the internet nowadays is full of misinformation, disinformation and uninformation, like those popups that offer you all that free junk

"Click the couch and win a free toilet paper roll" :)

[Tachyon360]

You'd be surprised. About 5 years ago, there were only those "Get your free gift!" schemes whose "gifts" were just a page of printable coupons and a load of spam. People got annoyed and left 'em alone. Believe it or not, it's since changed for the better.

Those "Get <insert product here> free!" things really do work. They really started to explode in popularity when advertisers saw that freeipods.com really worked well, but Gratis Network, the company running it, had some success with previous endeavors of the sort. Most people can't manage to complete the trial offers they're required to complete *and* get five friends to sign up and complete one trial offer each.

So in the end, the people that have lots of time and lots of friends get lots of free stuff, the advertisers make pretty decent profits (since completed trial offers earn more than banner ads), and the companies that give those trial offers are more likely to get customers than with print advertising at a much lower cost. So in the end, everybody's happy, except for friendless jerks.

[Elliott]

It can't have been "started" by one incident. Since the creation of "qwerty" keyboards, 'o' has been next to 'p'. And the word 'own' being used as a derogitory term in video games and real life has been around for ages. So of course it would have happening in games, instant messenger, forums etc. etc.

[Tachyon360]

Uh, yeah, that was already established.

[Nemphtis]

Why are we debating this, isn't the bottom line clear?

I pwn you all.

[Elliott]

*swoops in and closes*
Yeah, this has been discussed to death and beyond.