You Have Been PWNED!

Thanksgiving is upon us. You may find yourselves among family this weekend, and I want you to be up on the newest lingo of the younger generation. My 10-y-o boy and I were playing a rather competitive game of catch the other day and he told me that I'd been "powned". I sort of remembered hearing that word before and asked him what it meant. He wasn't sure, so I googled it and found this on Urban Dictionary:

A corruption of the word "Owned." This originated in an online game called Warcraft, where a map designer misspelled "owned." When the computer beat a player, it was supposed to say, so-and-so "has been owned."

Instead, it said, so-and-so "has been pwned."

It basically means "to own" or to be dominated by an opponent or situation, especially by some god-like or computer-like force.

So there it is. I don't recommend that you use the word yourself. Sometimes it is best to let the young ones have their language all to themselves. But at least you know the score. ;-)