It’s really a peculiar case for linguistics. For almost all of human history, words have originated in their spoken form, and then became written later. There could be no ambiguity about how a word was pronounced (in a given dialect and accent, at least), because that’s what the word really is, but when a word is new, there might briefly be uncertainty about how to properly spell it. Here, though, we have a word that originated entirely in a print-based medium, and for which there has therefore never been any ambiguity about its spelling, but for which it took a while for it to make its way into spoken language and for its pronunciation to be settled upon.
And for the record, I consider “pwn” to be a perfectly legitimate word, and would have no qualms about using it non-ironically, in text or speech, in an appropriate context.
Did the term “own” meaning “utterly defeated” predate the “pwned” misspelling?
My first exposure to it (I’m a 50 year old now) was around 2005-2006, when I was being the stone in the shoe at some 9/11 conspiracy web forums. I had to ask someone what “pwned” means, and the answer was that it means “owned,” then I had to ask what that means in this context. I was not familiar with the use of “owned” meaning “defeated.”
Yes, I should have perhaps simply said that “rofl” is “roffle” rather than that it rhymes with “ruffle”… “roffle” is how I’d pronounce it… should I ever have a case when I’d pronounce it…
And indeed, “roflmao” is pronounced “roffle”-(chaiman)-“mao” in the video I linked.
Ah, yes, it was in this sense that a World of Warcraft ex-guildmate would use it on Vent. (i.e. “lol” verbally over the voice communication system).
