# The President of the United States vs. Steve Colbert? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [May 1, 2006, 4:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-president-of-the-united-states-vs-steve-colbert/354915 "2006-05-01T04:11:41Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 5
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2006, 7:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-president-of-the-united-states-vs-steve-colbert/354915/81 "2006-05-03T19:35:25Z")
[QUOTE=tracer] I’m also not sure, to this day, how you’re supposed to pronounce “pwn”. 😉 [/QUOTE] I was told a year or two about that it’s pronounced “pone,” like the Southern butter-fried corn dish. The things you learn from rooming with a computer geek. ---
**Author:** ![Menocchio](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/9de053/32.png) [@Menocchio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Menocchio)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2006, 8:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-president-of-the-united-states-vs-steve-colbert/354915/82 "2006-05-03T20:00:25Z")
[QUOTE=tracer] [emphasis mine] I am still amazed that one typo way back on the old the World of Warcraft _Beta_ servers has snowballed into such a mainstream term. I’m also not sure, to this day, how you’re supposed to pronounce “pwn”. 😉 (Or, for that matter, “zomg”.) [/QUOTE] “Pwned” has got to predate WoW by several years. If I had to guess, I’d say it came from Counterstrike, if not earlier hacker culture. ---
**Author:** ![lissener](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lissener/32/6139_2.png) [@lissener](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lissener)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2006, 8:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-president-of-the-united-states-vs-steve-colbert/354915/83 "2006-05-03T20:06:02Z")
[QUOTE=msmith537] Well, the point is to entertain and amuse your audience. It seemed to me that his audience wasn’t all that amused. I should also point out that John Stewart’s appearance on Crossfire was not satire. It was him getting on a soapbox. [/QUOTE] Ah. I see the confusion. You’re thinking of a dancing monkey. If they had wanted a monkey to dance for them and not a political satirist, their first step in that direction would have been to hire a dancing monkey and not a political satirist. ---
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2006, 8:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-president-of-the-united-states-vs-steve-colbert/354915/84 "2006-05-03T20:07:22Z")
If you read the ‘w’ in “pwned” as a Greek omega, you can pronounce it as a long ‘o,’ and thus pronounce “pwned” as “poned” (rhymes with “boned.”) ---
**Author:** ![E-Sabbath](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/e19adc/32.png) [@E-Sabbath](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/E-Sabbath)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2006, 8:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-president-of-the-united-states-vs-steve-colbert/354915/85 "2006-05-03T20:22:22Z")
Or you could realize that the O and P keys are together, and ‘pwned’ goes all the way back to Doom, if not before. “Dude, I owned you.” Wikipedia cites it as 1994, but I think I _may_ recall a previous usage. ---
**Author:** ![Sampiro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/2acd7d/32.png) [@Sampiro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sampiro)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2006, 8:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-president-of-the-united-states-vs-steve-colbert/354915/86 "2006-05-03T20:23:34Z")
[QUOTE=Marley23] I was told a year or two about that it’s pronounced “pone,” like the Southern butter-fried corn dish. The things you learn from rooming with a computer geek. [/QUOTE] The southern fried corn dish is just called “fritters”- “pone” refers to watching “nekkid people do the doo-dah on a tee-vee or computah”. ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2006, 8:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-president-of-the-united-states-vs-steve-colbert/354915/87 "2006-05-03T20:40:03Z")
[QUOTE=Sampiro] The southern fried corn dish is just called “fritters”- “pone” refers to watching “nekkid people do the doo-dah on a tee-vee or computah”. [/QUOTE] I thought that was “pawn.” My experience with Southern food is limited to grits and the helpings at the Waffle House, so pardon me if my terms are outdated. ---
**Author:** ![kaylasdad99](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kaylasdad99/32/3398_2.png) [@kaylasdad99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kaylasdad99)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2006, 8:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-president-of-the-united-states-vs-steve-colbert/354915/88 "2006-05-03T20:44:12Z")
In my head, I always read it as “pooned”. cf, the Welsh word _cwm_, pronounced “coom.” And my 1989 purchase of _More of the Straight Dope_ is justified yet again. 🆒 ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2006, 8:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-president-of-the-united-states-vs-steve-colbert/354915/89 "2006-05-03T20:44:40Z")
[QUOTE=Sampiro] The southern fried corn dish is just called “fritters”- “pone” refers to watching “nekkid people do the doo-dah on a tee-vee or computah”. [/QUOTE] “cornpone” = “cornbread” – baked, not fried. ---
**Author:** ![gigi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/a587f6/32.png) [@gigi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gigi)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2006, 9:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-president-of-the-united-states-vs-steve-colbert/354915/90 "2006-05-03T21:05:34Z")
[QUOTE=Marley23] I thought that was “pawn.” [/QUOTE] That’s how I pronounce “pwn”. ---
**Author:** ![lissener](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lissener/32/6139_2.png) [@lissener](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lissener)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2006, 9:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-president-of-the-united-states-vs-steve-colbert/354915/91 "2006-05-03T21:12:31Z")
[QUOTE=kaylasdad99] In my head, I always read it as “pooned”. cf, the Welsh word _cwm_, pronounced “coom.” [/QUOTE] Ha! Me too. ---
**Author:** ![tracer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tracer/32/20578_2.png) [@tracer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tracer)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2006, 11:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-president-of-the-united-states-vs-steve-colbert/354915/92 "2006-05-03T23:25:08Z")
And here all this time, I’ve been pronouncing it “pwunned”, with the u almost silent, like it was only a semivowel. I’m surprised to hear it was in use going all the way back to the first _Doom_, especially since the early _Doom_ could only be played multi-player within a LAN. ---
**Author:** ![phungi](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/phungi/32/395_2.png) [@phungi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/phungi)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2006, 11:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-president-of-the-united-states-vs-steve-colbert/354915/93 "2006-05-03T23:59:52Z")
The video has beel pulled from YouTube, stating: “This video has been removed due to copyright infringement.” ---
**Author:** ![Johnny\_Angel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/d26b3c/32.png) [@Johnny\_Angel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_Angel)\ **Post date:** [May 4, 2006, 3:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-president-of-the-united-states-vs-steve-colbert/354915/94 "2006-05-04T03:24:00Z")
[QUOTE=Menocchio] “Pwned” has got to predate WoW by several years. If I had to guess, I’d say it came from Counterstrike, if not earlier hacker culture. [/quote] [This article](http://www.encyclopediadramatica.com/index.php/Pwned) attributes it to [Fargo of Gamespy](http://www.gamespy.com/articles/?constraint.grid.section=PlanetFargo&constraint.grid.all=true&constraint.hide=true), author of [The Daily Victim](http://archive.gamespy.com/dailyvictim/index.asp?id=11), whose untimely demise precipitated a dramatic drop in my interest in [GameSpy.com](http://GameSpy.com). ---
**Author:** ![Johnny\_Angel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/d26b3c/32.png) [@Johnny\_Angel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_Angel)\ **Post date:** [May 4, 2006, 3:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-president-of-the-united-states-vs-steve-colbert/354915/95 "2006-05-04T03:38:57Z")
> [@phungi](#): > > The video has beel pulled from YouTube, stating: > > “This video has been removed due to copyright infringement.” Try: [http://www.salon.com/ent/video\_dog/politics/2006/04/30/colbert\_press/index.html](http://www.salon.com/ent/video_dog/politics/2006/04/30/colbert_press/index.html) There’s an ad you have to watch or click-through or something. ---
**Author:** ![rjung](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/45deac/32.png) [@rjung](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rjung)\ **Post date:** [May 4, 2006, 3:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-president-of-the-united-states-vs-steve-colbert/354915/96 "2006-05-04T03:40:57Z")
[QUOTE=phungi] The video has beel pulled from YouTube, stating: “This video has been removed due to copyright infringement.” [/QUOTE] _Translation:_ “Some unfunny conservative complained about it making the Prezident look bad.” ---
**Author:** ![Ogre](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/ecb155/32.png) [@Ogre](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ogre)\ **Post date:** [May 4, 2006, 4:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-president-of-the-united-states-vs-steve-colbert/354915/97 "2006-05-04T04:03:29Z")
Holy crap. The thing that occurs me is that he’s not trying to be funny, and he’s just seething with anger. He’s just running with the golden opportunity of a lifetime. Absolutely fearless. I love it. ---
**Author:** ![Ogre](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/ecb155/32.png) [@Ogre](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ogre)\ **Post date:** [May 4, 2006, 4:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-president-of-the-united-states-vs-steve-colbert/354915/98 "2006-05-04T04:14:22Z")
By far the best part was the press secretary audition tape. My God, that was the most brutal, skewering satire I think I’ve ever seen…and he showed it TO THE PRESIDENT, who was a captive audience. Beautiful. ---
**Author:** ![Ogre](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/ecb155/32.png) [@Ogre](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ogre)\ **Post date:** [May 4, 2006, 4:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-president-of-the-united-states-vs-steve-colbert/354915/99 "2006-05-04T04:19:06Z")
One more post. He stood there and forced the President to watch a film which literally said, “No matter what you do, we will dog your steps forever until you answer the hard questions.” That’s almost frighteningly ballsy. ---
**Author:** ![Kolak\_of\_Twilo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kolak_of_twilo/32/73_2.png) [@Kolak\_of\_Twilo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kolak_of_Twilo)\ **Post date:** [May 4, 2006, 9:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-president-of-the-united-states-vs-steve-colbert/354915/100 "2006-05-04T09:19:49Z")
For those who want to see this [here](http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=06/05/03/145234) is a link that will take you to most of his speech. I have spent a good part of the last few hours trying to find it online and it seems to be vanishing from most websites that are putting it up within a few hours. Funny, that. The lack of laughter at certain points seems to me related to the fact the Prez is in the room, a few seats away, while he is getting dumped on. I say this because Colbert is funny as hell and right on target. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-president-of-the-united-states-vs-steve-colbert/354915.md?page=4) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-president-of-the-united-states-vs-steve-colbert/354915.md?page=6)