Is it because the P is next to the O?
Who coined the word?
Was it Magic the psycho artboy or someone else?

- The Jake

I assume heavy drinking was involved in this one!?

theres a website i thiink they must have started it

yeah, it was originally a typo, but now, it is how the word "owned" is officially spelled.

It is much cooler

- The Jake

yea, I once text messaged seldom tap with the only word in the message being "pwn3D!!!1"...he was well impressed.

probably the same place n00b and l33t came from. Internet dwellers with too much time to think up terms for cyber superiority.

probably the Everquest boards.

w00t!

yes that too

yeah it was a typo by magic and everybody liked it so bad that we kept it in!

www.pwned.com

Bruce Lovely's home

History

Though the origins of L33T are unclear, most sources locate its beginnings during the early 1980's. L33T was originally used as a way for hackers to discuss techniques and triumphs on bulletin board systems (BBS's, and later on websites, newsgroups, messageboards, etc.) without being detected (by the law or the public) by keyword searches in search engines. The original form of L33T simply replaced some letters--most commonly 'A' and 'E'--with numbers ('A' became '4' and 'E' became '3') so that searches for "hacker" would miss a "h4ck3r" Web page.

As Web-hacking grew in popularity and visibility, more and more people picked up on L33T, viewing it as a sort of code of communication used to signify membership in an elite community of computer users (hence the name, pronounced 'leet'). This dialect became common among people discussing their 'h4x' (hacks) and their skills as "h4x0rz" (hackers).



Vocabulary

Although l33t speak is just a corrupted form of the English language, there are many phrases and words (spellings) that are unique to it.

0w|\| or 0wn3d - One of the most popular l33t words it is very loosely defined as beaten or can simply be an expression of awe, for example, 'I 0wn3d you' means 'I have beaten you in a very humiliating fashion', or '0wn4ge!' which means 'That was (or is) very nifty'.
w00t - Derived from 'hoot', this is defined as 'yay', it can be used, for example, upon victory or, possibly, the release and procurement of a new video card.
13wt - Treasure, good merchandise, possessions, a misspelling of loot. Most commonly referring to pirated software, items in a game or promotional giveaways.
h4x0r - Hacker, can be used for a real hacker or simply a very skillful person. This is the most common occurrence of the -0r clause.
ph33r - Fear, most commonly used in such phrases as, 'Ph33r m3!' or 'Ph33r |\/|y 1337 sk1llz!' It can also be written as, 'ph34r'.
sk1llz - Obviously derived from 'skill', referring to skill in some type of online game, programming or hacking. Many times used in conjunction with 'm4d'. As a general rule, if one has sk1llz, one is to be ph33r3d.
m4d - Mad, mostly used as a descriptive term meaning great, for example, 'h3s g0t m4d sk1llz'.
j00 - You, commonly used in such phrases as, 'j00 d34d f00'.
f00 - Fool, one who isn't very bright or skillful.
j0 - Yo, as in the greeting.
d00d - Dude; an expression of comrade, or just used to address a random person online.
sux0r - Sucks, as in '7h1s sux0r', one of the few common examples of the -0r clause.
l4m3r - Lamer, someone who is lame, someone who uses an unfair tactic or generally makes the things around him or her less fun.
n00b - Short for noobie, misspelling of newbie; someone who is new to something, or just not very good at it.

A Guide

BBC's h2g2 site provides the following excellent remedial style guide to L33T:


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Grammar or Lack Thereof
As you've already seen, basic l33t is just replacing vowels with numbers:

A = 4
E = 3
I = 1
O = 0
However l33t is a very flexible 'language' and you can go from this very basic l33t, to ultra 1337 by being creative; a few examples:

O = ()
U = |_|
T = 7
D = |)
W = \/\/
S = $
There is no agreed-upon way to write l33t, so it's up to you whether or not to go with light l33t, medium 1337, hard |_337 or even ultra |_33¯|¯. In this entry, 'l33t' is used except when referring to medium, hard or ultra '1337'.

Other Grammatical Oddities

The -0r clause can be used in place of -ed or -er, for example '1 0wnz0r!' (most commonly seen in ultra 1337 as '1 0\/\/|\|z0r!') rather than '1 0wn3d'. However it can also be used like this, '1 4m l33t h4x0r!' (in ultra 1337, '1 4|\/| |_337 |-|4x0r!') rather than, '1 4m 4 133t h4ck3r!'.

As a general rule, in l33t, rather than use 's' to make something plural, a 'z' is used instead. Also 'f' is normally changed to 'ph'. The short 'u' is often changed to '00', as well.

Punctuation is usually left out with greater consistency as the level of l33t increases. Full stops are left out entirely because, when you are chatting online, where you would normally put a full stop you just hit 'enter' to send the message and keep typing. Exclamation marks are used quite a bit (and usually quite a number at once), mostly because l33t is most commonly used in expressions of pleasure. Commas are generally left out in hard and ultra 1337, and are uncommon in medium 1337.

http://www.google.com/intl/xx-hacker/

actually "pwned" came from counterstrike players, since they would type in a hurry after fragging some other player they hit the p, it caught on from there.

Curly is like our very own reference section

Middle English pwen, from Old English gen. See aik- in Indo-European Roots.

adj.
Of or belonging to oneself or itself

n.
That which belongs to one

I will always type it as Owned.

Originally posted by Curly Howard
http://www.google.com/intl/xx-hacker/

curls, it more like: http://www.google.com/intl/****ing-gay-wankers/

HAHAHAHa I can't believe that link worked

hey, **** me, it did work.