I’m really sick of the improper use of the verb “own.” Ever since it became popular amongst video game nerds, it has since spread to the pop culture lexicon. Originally (and correctly), the verb denotes ownership of something. For example, “I own a tan car.” Those idiot gaming losers, however, somehow turned it into a pissing contest; as in, “I totally owned you at Halo.” That doesn’t make any sense. You don’t actually own a person; slavery was abolished a long time ago. As for the instances when a kid says something like “Halo owns,” that makes no sense, either. What exactly does it own? It’s a damn game, not a sentient being that could physically own an object.

Compounding this is mixing the improper usage with the mess of poor grammar and spelling commonly referred to as “leetspeak.” I shudder to even type this kind of shit here, but I’m required to, just to give you an example: “ZOMG I juz t0tally pwned j00 at teh Hal0!!!!!11!!!!” (And believe me, that’s an incredibly lightweight example.) As such, the original “owned” slang is just as often seen as “pwned,” even in non-leetspeak! Worse yet, people actually pronounce it “powned.” It’s not even a fucking word!

Bullshit like this is one of the many reasons why the internet is a scary place. And the fact that this kind of poor grasp on simple communication has started to filter into our school system (kids actually turn in papers with emoticons and acronyms like “LOL”) scares the shit out of me. Yes, people really are that stupid.