What does “i pwn n00bs” mean?

Nibble on this: “i pwn n00bs” may look like nonsensical keybanging but in fact it is a simple declarative sentence. If you were to spell it out in standard English it would look like this: I pone noobs. That still doesn’t make much sense to some of you, I know. So let me explain it bit by bit.

The i is the personal pronoun I (referring to oneself, the speaker in this case). “Why isn’t it capitalized?” you may ask. Good question. This sentence would usually appear as part of a computer-based communication such as a forum post, an e-mail, a text message, or a message that one player of a World Wide Web based game would send to another or to the world in general. People who communicate in this fashion simply do not have time to pay any attention to the tired old constraints of yesterdays conventions such as grammar, spelling, proper usage and such. For the people who would type “i pwn n00bs” the world, or at least the game they are playing, moves much too fast. Precious milliseconds can be saved by not capitalizing the personal pronoun, the first word in a sentence, or anything for that matter.

The first word in the sentence “i pwn n00bs” was the easy one to explain. The final two words are, at first blush, more obscure. The word pwn is pronounced as if it had a vowel, the long O. The word pwn rhymes with the words bone, phone, and cone. “So why does it have the ‘w’ in it?” you may ask. Another good question. The word pwn also rhymes with the word own. The legend is that someone meant to type the word own but because of limited typing skills or no time or willingness to proofread what was typed the word came out pwn. The word n00bs is another instance of alternative keyboard based spelling. It is short for the word newbies.

So what does “i pwn n00bs” mean, already? Let’s consider some possible meanings. There is a real word in English spelled and pronounced pone. It is a sort of fried cornbread and sometimes referred to as corn pone. The contraction and alternatively spelled n00bs is itself a contraction for newbies. Newbies is a bastardization of another word, but which one? One candidate is the word nubile. Nubile is an adjective that refers to young single women suitable for marriage. Another possibility is the word Nubian. Nubian is an adjective that refers to people from Nubia, which long ago was a powerful nation along the Nile River in northeastern Africa in what is now southern Egypt and northern Sudan.

So, being an educated person, you might be tempted to think that “i pwn n00bs” means “I give fried corn bread to single, young women in northeastern Africa.” Of course, if you thought this you’d be wrong… and maybe a little bit nuts. First of all, most women prefer a gift of flowers to a gift of fried cornbread. Second, newbies is a combination of the word newcomer and the term wannabe. Someone who is new to some activity is a newbie. In the early days of the world wide web experienced computer geeks used newbie as a pejorative term for novice computer users, especially members of America Online (AOL). The word newbie had been used to mean a newcomer in many contexts long before computers became widely available. The word pwn probably does mean own in the context of gaming (computer and otherwise) competition. For example, when the Buffalo Sabres easily defeat the Boston Bruins every game they play during the regular season the Sabres are said to “own” the Bruins. Likewise, when person A regularly defeats person B at Halo person A owns person B. In this context to own someone is to regularly and soundly defeat them. Bobby Fischer owned Boris Spassky.

So “i pwn n00bs” means something like “I regularly and soundly defeat players who have much less experience at this game than I have.” It is a boast, bragging, trash talking. Of course, an experienced player should regularly and soundly defeat novice players. But n00bs have a way of getting better, so watch your back because the pwnr could become the pwnee.