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A Necessary History of the Oddest Letter: W

203 points · 109 comments · NaOH

  1. AnodicElegy · · focus · HN ↗
    The most irritating way in which W is odd is that it requires three syllables to name, while all the other English letters are monosyllabic. This leads to many unfortunate situations where it takes substantially longer to say the acronym of a title than to say the title itself. Take for example, the World Wildlife Fund, which contains four syllables (or maybe five, depending how you pronounce "wild") and whose acronym contains seven. Given how many acronyms contain the word "World" in particular, this is clearly a massive inefficiency in the way we go about our lives. I've started a campaign to rename it something reasonable like "woo" or "woe", but neither Reuters nor the AP seem particularly interested.
    1. andsoitis · · focus · HN ↗
      > I've started a campaign to rename it something reasonable like "woo" or "woe", but neither Reuters nor the AP seem particularly interested.

      I support your campaign. Other candidates: wa, weh, wu

      1. MrBuddyCasino · · focus · HN ↗
        In German its „weh“. But then V is „phau“, so its not as easy to confuse as in English.
        1. andsoitis · · focus · HN ↗
          I know German.

          In English, I don’t think vee and weh would be confused, but I’m partial to wa.

        2. tgv · · focus · HN ↗
          So why did I learn doppel Vau then? Has there been a change of heart?
    2. BoorishBears · · focus · HN ↗
      Why not simple, W: making a mouth shape as-if to say "What", then sharply exhale a puff of air instead
    3. jfengel · · focus · HN ↗
      In German it's called "vay". That's brief, and gets a few million people on your side.
      1. anamexis · · focus · HN ↗
        Counterpoint: Ypsilon.
        1. k__ · · focus · HN ↗
          Fair, but Y isn't used much in German.
          1. Ylpertnodi · · focus · HN ↗
            Germany.
    4. anon_cow1111 · · focus · HN ↗
      Stupid, but related amusing nostalgia:

      By default. Unreal Tournament 2003/4 used to have in-game text chat that would use the "Microsoft Sam" voice synthesizer to read player messages aloud to everyone in the room... MS Sam took so long to pronounce the letter "W /DoubleYou" that you could just go into a server and drop a 512 character "W-bomb" and leave. Everyone in the room would have to listen to several minutes of dubbayou's assuming they never turned off the voice feature.

      (I miss those days of genuinely annoying but still apolitical random trolling)

      1. protocolture · · focus · HN ↗
        The gentleman who hosted the LAN party, whose mother had her bedroom right above his PC, with speakers blaring, as we got Microsoft Sam to spell out countless insults and incredulous things while he complained "Cmon guys" never did host again.
    5. nkrisc · · focus · HN ↗
      Or, of course, WWW (world-wide web) where each word of the acronym is itself a single syllable. This means the acronym is 6 syllables longer if you were speaking it.
      1. bluebarbet · · focus · HN ↗
        Indeed. This has to rank as one of the worst branding mistakes in history. All TBL had to do was call the subdomain "web" but instead he went for the infuriatingly fussy and tongue-tying "www".
        1. b112 · · focus · HN ↗
          It was a different time. Everything from movies to stories at the bus stop were longer, more relaxed, less rushed. www probably didn't seem like a big deal at the time.

          Alternates seem... bad. Instead of 'double u', you could say 'sexta-u', but that could lead to a slap in the face. Possibly the same for sextuple-u, which sounds like someone's going to tackle you then do some strange all over you.

          If it wasn't for U and V switching in the middle ages, it'd be like the french language which says 'double v', and then 'sexta-v' could be OK.

          1. JadeNB · · focus · HN ↗
            > It was a different time. Everything from movies to stories at the bus stop were longer, more relaxed, less rushed. www probably didn't seem like a big deal at the time.

            Hmm, and yet, though of a different era, we got `cp`, `ls, `mv`, `rm` ....

        2. PlunderBunny · · focus · HN ↗
          It’s (slightly) easier to type www than web.
        3. [deleted] · · focus · HN ↗

          [deleted]

      2. ddingus · · focus · HN ↗
        A radio talk show host I really enjoyed came up with this:

        .'triple double ya site dot gom."

        You can say that fast and people get it.

      3. [deleted] · · focus · HN ↗

        [deleted]

    6. pavlov · · focus · HN ↗
      It’s commonly called “dub” when brevity is called for, as in “dub dub dub” = www.

      Or is this just a tech industry idiom that I’ve been taking for granted…

      1. roryirvine · · focus · HN ↗
        Though it does make you sound like a boy scout...

        Wuh works better, imho, though it does tend to degrade into "wuh'uh'uh" when said quickly.

        The BBC tried very hard in 1994/5 to persuade people to pronounce "http://www." as "hit web" - thankfully, that failed to gain any traction whatsoever.

        1. fdcjjrvdcg · · focus · HN ↗
          I don’t know… I always had a soft spot for “hit web”. Makes it sound so cool. It’s dumb but I quite like it :D
      2. ButlerianJihad · · focus · HN ↗
        We proposed “dub-three” in accord with a guy who was fighting the Clipper Chip
      3. williamdclt · · focus · HN ↗
        well, never heard that!

        And hate it, as "dub" does not contain (let alone start with) the sound it refers to

        1. Izkata · · focus · HN ↗
          It's the first part of its name, "double-u".

          H doesn't contain its sound either, and G has only one of the two sounds it makes (and it's not the one unique to it).

    7. ortusdux · · focus · HN ↗
      It's also the only letter that is not used in its own pronunciation. It really breaks the cadence of alphabet books!
      1. cwnyth · · focus · HN ↗
        Technically, one of the sounds of W is heard at the end of its name, and is seen more clearly in its homophone "yew" (rhymes with ew, shrew, mew, chew, few, Drew, etc.).
      2. notpushkin · · focus · HN ↗
        Wikipedia lists ‘C’ as “cee”, but that’s cheating IMO. It’s clearly “see”!

        <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;English_alphabet#Letter_names" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;English_alphabet#Letter_names

    8. yongjik · · focus · HN ↗
      The name for &quot;Y&quot; starts with a &quot;w&quot; sound, so why not make it symmetric: let&#x27;s call &quot;Y&quot; why and &quot;W&quot; yay.
      1. fdcjjrvdcg · · focus · HN ↗
        Ok I hate this and I love this. Yay indeed!
    9. Sharlin · · focus · HN ↗
      Not to mention &quot;www&quot;, which when pronounced is actually three times longer than its expansion.
      1. sheept · · focus · HN ↗
        For a native speaker in casual speech, it&#x27;ll only be at most a bit slower than its expansion because English is stress-timed
      2. layer8 · · focus · HN ↗
        You could shorten it to “sextuple u”.
        1. b112 · · focus · HN ↗
          Great minds think alike, but my concern was that sextuple-u sounds like you&#x27;re about to tackle someone and do something.
          1. chuckadams · · focus · HN ↗
            Plus it&#x27;s still cumbersome to say. But I guess &quot;sex-u&quot; is right out.
    10. dyzone · · focus · HN ↗
      W is &quot;double u&quot;
      1. Razengan · · focus · HN ↗
        And that&#x27;s why it&#x27;s my favorite letter :)
      2. chrisweekly · · focus · HN ↗
        Yet its written shape is a double-V.
        1. [deleted] · · focus · HN ↗

          [deleted]

        2. thaumasiotes · · focus · HN ↗
          That&#x27;s easy to explain; U and V are the same letter.
          1. [deleted] · · focus · HN ↗

            [deleted]

          2. chrisweekly · · focus · HN ↗
            Untrue. Vowel.
            1. notpushkin · · focus · HN ↗
              Uoɰel?
            2. thaumasiotes · · focus · HN ↗
              Try looking into the history. The explanation I gave is correct.
    11. lynndotpy · · focus · HN ↗
      There is precedent among English speakers for &quot;dub&quot; or &quot;dubya&quot;.

      George W. Bush is something referred to as &quot;dubya&quot;, for the &quot;W&quot; part. And modern slang &quot;W&quot; or &quot;dubs&quot; as shorthand for &quot;win&quot;.

      &quot;Dubya&quot; fits in the ABC song just as well as double-you, while &quot;dubs&quot; can fit as &quot;dubs and X, Y and Z&quot;.

      You might have better luck with NPR, they assure me that they read every email.

    12. ButlerianJihad · · focus · HN ↗
      The erstwhile World Wide Wrestling Federation <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;WWF_trademark_dispute" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;WWF_trademark_dispute
    13. cwnyth · · focus · HN ↗
      Should be &quot;wee&quot;, and rhymes with B, C, D, G, P, T, V, and (in some dialects) Z.
      1. Ylpertnodi · · focus · HN ↗
        Trying to sing the alphabet song with a &#x27;wee&#x27; is hard. Weeeeeeeee, x, y, and I hate British English for teaching me &#x27;zed&#x27;.
        1. nephihaha · · focus · HN ↗
          &quot;Zed&quot; is much better than &quot;zee&quot; for the simple reason that &quot;zee&quot; sounds too much like &quot;zee&quot;.
    14. adrian_b · · focus · HN ↗
      &quot;Whiskey&quot;, in the International Radiotelephony Spelling Alphabet (NATO phonetic alphabet), is easier to pronounce than &quot;double u&quot;.
    15. wkjagt · · focus · HN ↗
      You would feel right at home in the way Dutch (and other Germanic languages) name W with just one syllable. V is &quot;vay&quot;, W is &quot;way&quot;. Except the W (in Dutch at least) sounds closer to a V, just less fricative. Same mouth shape, with the bottom teeth against the upper lip.
    16. [deleted] · · focus · HN ↗

      [deleted]

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