I’m new – will someone have pity on me and tell me what PNW’ed means? What do the letters stand for?

Hi Beth,

I will tell you. I don’t know how much you know or what part of the country/world you live in, so I will step way back.

I live in Seattle. As you may know, this region is called the “Pacific Northwest,” and is often shortened to PNW. Every region has its weird little cultural things that make it unique, right? The PNW has salmon, pine trees, and the people here seem nuts for fleece. My sister and I have a joke about things “getting PNW’ed,” so we make bad jokes about salmon hot dogs or Paris Hilton wearing fleece.

Beth and I emailed further and she brought up the gamer slang “pwned.” It also relates to that. I say “pee-en-double-you’ed,” but my sister always says “puh-nowed!” when she is having a PNW moment. It’s kind of like pwning or getting pwned, Northwest style. We frequently get puh-nowed by the, um, unique local driving style.