A Necessary History of the Oddest Letter: W

Re:A Necessary History of the Oddest Letter: W by AnodicElegy on Sunday September 20, 2026 @02:26PM (#49778500)

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.

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Re:A Necessary History of the Oddest Letter: W by anon_cow1111 on Sunday September 20, 2026 @02:38PM (#49778620)

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 a 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)

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Re:A Necessary History of the Oddest Letter: W by protocolture on Sunday September 20, 2026 @11:07PM (#49782612)

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.

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Re:A Necessary History of the Oddest Letter: W by lynndotpy on Sunday September 20, 2026 @03:41PM (#49779286)

There is precedent among English speakers for "dub" or "dubya".

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

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

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

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Re:A Necessary History of the Oddest Letter: W by yongjik on Sunday September 20, 2026 @03:01PM (#49778869)

The name for "Y" starts with a "w" sound, so why not make it symmetric: let's call "Y" why and "W" yay.

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Re:A Necessary History of the Oddest Letter: W by fdcjjrvdcg on Sunday September 20, 2026 @03:28PM (#49779151)

Ok I hate this and I love this. Yay indeed!

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Re:A Necessary History of the Oddest Letter: W by ortusdux on Sunday September 20, 2026 @03:00PM (#49778857)

It's also the only letter that is not used in its own pronunciation. It really breaks the cadence of alphabet books!

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Re:A Necessary History of the Oddest Letter: W by cwnyth on Sunday September 20, 2026 @04:52PM (#49779968)

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.).

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Re:A Necessary History of the Oddest Letter: W by notpushkin on Monday September 21, 2026 @12:28PM (#49789452)

Wikipedia lists ‘C’ as “cee”, but that’s cheating IMO. It’s clearly “see”!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_alphabet#Letter_names

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Re:A Necessary History of the Oddest Letter: W by nkrisc on Sunday September 20, 2026 @02:38PM (#49778629)

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.

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Re:A Necessary History of the Oddest Letter: W by bluebarbet on Sunday September 20, 2026 @04:13PM (#49779608)

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".

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Re:A Necessary History of the Oddest Letter: W by b112 on Sunday September 20, 2026 @04:48PM (#49779931)

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.

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Re:A Necessary History of the Oddest Letter: W by JadeNB on Sunday September 20, 2026 @07:43PM (#49781334)

> 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` ....

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Re:A Necessary History of the Oddest Letter: W by PlunderBunny on Sunday September 20, 2026 @09:01PM (#49781820)

It’s (slightly) easier to type www than web.

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Re:A Necessary History of the Oddest Letter: W by ddingus on Sunday September 20, 2026 @07:04PM (#49781044)

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.

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Re:A Necessary History of the Oddest Letter: W by jfengel on Sunday September 20, 2026 @02:37PM (#49778610)

In German it's called "vay". That's brief, and gets a few million people on your side.

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Re:A Necessary History of the Oddest Letter: W by anamexis on Sunday September 20, 2026 @02:42PM (#49778668)

Counterpoint: Ypsilon.

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Re:A Necessary History of the Oddest Letter: W by k__ on Sunday September 20, 2026 @02:54PM (#49778800)

Fair, but Y isn't used much in German.

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Re:A Necessary History of the Oddest Letter: W by Ylpertnodi on Monday September 21, 2026 @03:49AM (#49784292)

Germany.

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Re:A Necessary History of the Oddest Letter: W by pavlov on Sunday September 20, 2026 @02:56PM (#49778821)

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…

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Re:A Necessary History of the Oddest Letter: W by roryirvine on Sunday September 20, 2026 @03:05PM (#49778900)

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.

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Re:A Necessary History of the Oddest Letter: W by fdcjjrvdcg on Sunday September 20, 2026 @03:27PM (#49779146)

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

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Re:A Necessary History of the Oddest Letter: W by ButlerianJihad on Sunday September 20, 2026 @03:44PM (#49779323)

We proposed “dub-three” in accord with a guy who was fighting the Clipper Chip

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Re:A Necessary History of the Oddest Letter: W by williamdclt on Monday September 21, 2026 @07:27AM (#49785840)

well, never heard that!

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

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Re:A Necessary History of the Oddest Letter: W by Izkata on Monday September 21, 2026 @10:22AM (#49787676)

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).

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Re:A Necessary History of the Oddest Letter: W by Sharlin on Sunday September 20, 2026 @03:05PM (#49778908)

Not to mention "www", which when pronounced is actually three times longer than its expansion.

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Re:A Necessary History of the Oddest Letter: W by sheept on Sunday September 20, 2026 @03:49PM (#49779374)

For a native speaker in casual speech, it'll only be at most a bit slower than its expansion because English is stress-timed

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Re:A Necessary History of the Oddest Letter: W by layer8 on Sunday September 20, 2026 @04:00PM (#49779472)

You could shorten it to “sextuple u”.

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Re:A Necessary History of the Oddest Letter: W by b112 on Sunday September 20, 2026 @04:50PM (#49779944)

Great minds think alike, but my concern was that sextuple-u sounds like you're about to tackle someone and do something.

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Re:A Necessary History of the Oddest Letter: W by chuckadams on Monday September 21, 2026 @10:28AM (#49787739)

Plus it's still cumbersome to say. But I guess "sex-u" is right out.

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Re:A Necessary History of the Oddest Letter: W by dyzone on Sunday September 20, 2026 @03:40PM (#49779277)

W is "double u"

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Re:A Necessary History of the Oddest Letter: W by chrisweekly on Sunday September 20, 2026 @04:08PM (#49779544)

Yet its written shape is a double-V.

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Re:A Necessary History of the Oddest Letter: W by thaumasiotes on Sunday September 20, 2026 @08:47PM (#49781729)

That's easy to explain; U and V are the same letter.

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Re:A Necessary History of the Oddest Letter: W by chrisweekly on Monday September 21, 2026 @08:17AM (#49786308)

Untrue. Vowel.

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Re:A Necessary History of the Oddest Letter: W by notpushkin on Monday September 21, 2026 @12:36PM (#49789568)

Uoɰel?

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Re:A Necessary History of the Oddest Letter: W by thaumasiotes on Monday September 21, 2026 @02:26PM (#49791266)

Try looking into the history. The explanation I gave is correct.

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Re:A Necessary History of the Oddest Letter: W by Razengan on Sunday September 20, 2026 @03:42PM (#49779304)

And that's why it's my favorite letter :)

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Re:A Necessary History of the Oddest Letter: W by ButlerianJihad on Sunday September 20, 2026 @03:42PM (#49779305)

The erstwhile World Wide Wrestling Federation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WWF_trademark_dispute

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Re:A Necessary History of the Oddest Letter: W by andsoitis on Sunday September 20, 2026 @02:29PM (#49778522)

> 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

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Re:A Necessary History of the Oddest Letter: W by MrBuddyCasino on Sunday September 20, 2026 @02:35PM (#49778598)

In German its „weh“. But then V is „phau“, so its not as easy to confuse as in English.

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Re:A Necessary History of the Oddest Letter: W by tgv on Sunday September 20, 2026 @03:19PM (#49779054)

So why did I learn doppel Vau then? Has there been a change of heart?

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Re:A Necessary History of the Oddest Letter: W by andsoitis on Sunday September 20, 2026 @02:47PM (#49778711)

I know German.

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

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Re:A Necessary History of the Oddest Letter: W by BoorishBears on Sunday September 20, 2026 @02:32PM (#49778559)

Why not simple, W: making a mouth shape as-if to say "What", then sharply exhale a puff of air instead

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Re:A Necessary History of the Oddest Letter: W by cwnyth on Sunday September 20, 2026 @04:58PM (#49780018)

Should be "wee", and rhymes with B, C, D, G, P, T, V, and (in some dialects) Z.

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Re:A Necessary History of the Oddest Letter: W by Ylpertnodi on Monday September 21, 2026 @03:46AM (#49784263)

Trying to sing the alphabet song with a 'wee' is hard. Weeeeeeeee, x, y, and I hate British English for teaching me 'zed'.

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Re:A Necessary History of the Oddest Letter: W by nephihaha on Thursday September 24, 2026 @05:03AM (#49828071)

"Zed" is much better than "zee" for the simple reason that "zee" sounds too much like "zee".

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Re:A Necessary History of the Oddest Letter: W by adrian_b on Monday September 21, 2026 @05:22AM (#49784988)

"Whiskey", in the International Radiotelephony Spelling Alphabet (NATO phonetic alphabet), is easier to pronounce than "double u".

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Re:A Necessary History of the Oddest Letter: W by wkjagt on Monday September 21, 2026 @05:49AM (#49785161)

You would feel right at home in the way Dutch (and other Germanic languages) name W with just one syllable. V is "vay", W is "way". 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.

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