How do you pronounce "pwn"?

My roommate pronounces it "pawn", I say "pown". What about you?


  • Total voters
    65

Lanlan

Well-Known Member
OP
Member
Joined
Feb 4, 2011
Messages
959
Trophies
0
XP
546
Country
United States
I heard my roommate say "pawn some noobs" recently and I was like WTF, have I been pronouncing pwn wrong? So I wiki'd it and apparently both "pown" and "pawn" are acceptable pronunciations. How do you guys pronounce it? I'd assume like 99.9% of people say "pown" but I could be wrong.
 

Cyan

GBATemp's lurking knight
Former Staff
Joined
Oct 27, 2002
Messages
23,749
Trophies
4
Age
45
Location
Engine room, learning
XP
15,649
Country
France
I mentally pronounce it pawn (I don't speak english so I never pronouce it).
But, I didn't even know the word "pown", nor I don't know how it is pronounced.

to me, both should be pronounced the same. p o n
 

AlanJohn

くたばれ
Global Moderator
Joined
Jan 6, 2011
Messages
3,849
Trophies
2
Age
26
Location
Canada,New Jersey
Website
www.deenextreme.com
XP
8,193
Country
Ukraine
"Pwn" is the retardation of the word "own". You see, in online video games (especially the ones that 10 y.o's play) whenever someone kills someone, they say "Owned!". But to make it even more stupid, it was once mis-spelled as "pwned" since the character "P" is right next to "O" on a traditional QWERTY keyboard.

Saying internet slang in real life is stupid and you should feel stupid for doing so.
 
  • Like
Reactions: 5 people

weavile001

Spiritmaster
Member
Joined
Jun 10, 2012
Messages
2,794
Trophies
0
Location
somewhere
XP
889
Country
Brazil
"Pwn" is the retardation of the word "own". You see, in online video games (especially the ones that 10 y.o's play) whenever someone kills someone, they say "Owned!". But to make it even more stupid, it was once mis-spelled as "pwned" since the character "P" is right next to "O" on a traditional QWERTY keyboard.

Saying internet slang in real life is stupid and you should feel stupid for doing so.

when i play cod mw3 for wii , i rarely hear someone saiyng "owned" neither pwned , only : se fudeu
 

AlanJohn

くたばれ
Global Moderator
Joined
Jan 6, 2011
Messages
3,849
Trophies
2
Age
26
Location
Canada,New Jersey
Website
www.deenextreme.com
XP
8,193
Country
Ukraine
"Pwn" is the retardation of the word "own". You see, in online video games (especially the ones that 10 y.o's play) whenever someone kills someone, they say "Owned!". But to make it even more stupid, it was once mis-spelled as "pwned" since the character "P" is right next to "O" on a traditional QWERTY keyboard.

Saying internet slang in real life is stupid and you should feel stupid for doing so.

when i play cod mw3 for wii , i rarely hear someone saiyng "owned" neither pwned , only : se fudeu
Because ironically, the people who play CoD on Wii are more mature than on Xbox.
:teach:
 
  • Like
Reactions: 8 people

Lanlan

Well-Known Member
OP
Member
Joined
Feb 4, 2011
Messages
959
Trophies
0
XP
546
Country
United States
Let's not argue, just answer the question and have civil conversation. Or I'll be very very angry.
 

Ace Overclocked

My CPU's hot but my core runs cold.
Member
Joined
Jul 30, 2010
Messages
2,115
Trophies
1
Age
26
Location
Somewhere
XP
1,299
Country
Italy
Let's not argue, just answer the question and have civil conversation. Or I'll be very very angry.
It's good to see that people on the 'temp still want peaceful and civil conversations, but please no ''i'll get angry'' or anything, it's not a way to calm things down.
To answer the question i imagine it as pown, not like i use it IRL.
 

SifJar

Not a pirate
Member
Joined
Apr 4, 2009
Messages
6,022
Trophies
0
Website
Visit site
XP
1,175
Country
It came about as a typo of "own", so I guess "pown" makes sense, but "pawn" is always how it sounds in my head, and there is logic behind that - in chess, the pawn is the weakest piece, and so "pawning" someone in a video game would refer to killing them with a lesser weapon (e.g. a pistol if they had a machine gun or whatever).
 

Hells Malice

Are you a bully?
Member
GBAtemp Patron
Joined
Apr 9, 2009
Messages
7,122
Trophies
3
Age
32
XP
9,270
Country
Canada
I always found pwn to be mildly retarded, but I say pown if and when I do ever say it. No other pronunciation makes sense considering it's replacing the word "own".
 
  • Like
Reactions: 1 person

Taleweaver

Storywriter
Member
Joined
Dec 23, 2009
Messages
8,689
Trophies
2
Age
43
Location
Belgium
XP
8,087
Country
Belgium
Easy: I don't pronounce it. The word gets used pretty much exclusively as a means of degrading someone in a gaming competition, and I don't go there. I'll keep it to "gee gee", "nice shot" and things like that. At worst, I'll call a match unbalanced. Usually when it IS (I swear some online people would get a rush from winning a CTF game if the teams were ten players to zero).

Mentally, the word kinda sounds exactly as written: 'pwn'. Somewhat the sound of these kinds of horns produce:

00162511.zoom.a.jpg



'Pwn' is word that should never be verbalised.

See also 'lol.'
To be fair, "lol" actually is a Dutch word. And it was that way long before the internet coined it.


It means to have fun. ("I'm having fun" is translated as "ik heb lol").


Yeah...we Dutchies were ahead of our time on that one. B-)
 
  • Like
Reactions: 3 people

VmprHntrD

Well-Known Member
Member
Joined
Nov 11, 2004
Messages
2,626
Trophies
0
Age
47
Location
Louisville, KY
XP
517
Country
United States
I don't, it's a ghetto word so I don't write or say it -- it's just OWN to me and spelled as such. :) Just like I refuse to write or say other ghetto words such as the b---g word for jewelry and other flashy accessories, screw that.
 
  • Like
Reactions: 1 person

Taleweaver

Storywriter
Member
Joined
Dec 23, 2009
Messages
8,689
Trophies
2
Age
43
Location
Belgium
XP
8,087
Country
Belgium
I never understood the whole pwn thing and where it came from or why it caught on.
Legend would have it, it was from a custom warcraft map. Warcraft lets you type a per-map win condition. The mapper allegedly was too tired and misspelled 'own' (Player 1 pwned player 2).

I guess it spread because of the absurdity, and because p is one MORE than o (which kinda makes 'pwn' better than 'own').


Oh, and I remember a phrase someone mentioned in a similar topic:

"(spoken) We got owned with a capital 'P'".
 

Site & Scene News

Popular threads in this forum

General chit-chat
Help Users
  • No one is chatting at the moment.
    K3Nv2 @ K3Nv2: https://youtube.com/shorts/WOppJ92RgGU?si=KE79L6A_3jESsGQM