A Necessary History of the Oddest Letter: W

Original Article ↗ Hacker News Discussion ↗

English speakers vent their fascination and frustration with the letter “W,” noting its three-syllable name, the inefficiency it creates in acronyms like “WWW,” and the irony that it’s visually a double-V but called a “double U.” Commenters trace W’s tangled history across Latin, Germanic, and Nordic languages, including its late or optional status in Finnish and Swedish and its impact on systems like Braille. The thread broadens into how different languages map sounds to letters—especially the v/w distinction—and how historical spelling choices and sound shifts (as in English and French) leave modern readers with irregular, often confusing orthographies.

Oddities of “W” in English

  • Its three-syllable name stands out among mostly monosyllabic letters and is seen as inefficient, especially in acronyms (e.g., “World Wildlife Fund”).
  • Several commenters suggest renaming it to a one-syllable sound: “woo,” “woe,” “wa,” “weh,” “way,” “dub,” “dubya,” or “wee.”
  • Some like playful symmetry ideas (rename W to “yay” since Y is “why”), others find such proposals annoying but amusing.
  • It’s noted as possibly the only letter whose standard name doesn’t clearly contain its own consonant sound; others dispute this by pointing to the final sound in “double-u.”

Acronyms, WWW, and tech slang

  • “WWW” is widely criticized as an inefficient spoken acronym longer than “World Wide Web” itself.
  • Alternatives discussed: just saying “web,” “dub-dub-dub,” “dub-three,” “triple double ya,” or even abandoned attempts like “hit web.”
  • Old game-voice anecdotes highlight how slow “double-u” is when repeated many times.

Other languages and historical notes

  • In several Germanic languages, W has a one-syllable name (German “weh,” Dutch “way”) and often a /v/-like sound.
  • History of V/W in Finnish and Swedish: early orthography treated u/v/w interchangeably; Finnish later dropped W except in names and jokes, while Swedish officially added W as a distinct letter only in 2006, which some speakers resent.
  • Various notes on thorn (þ) → “ye olde,” Latin V functioning as both U and W, and W’s disruptive position in Braille’s otherwise-regular pattern.

Spelling, pronunciation, and reform

  • Non-native and native speakers alike criticize English’s irregular spelling–pronunciation mapping but also gain appreciation from its history (e.g., Great Vowel Shift, lost letters).
  • Comparisons with French, German, Hungarian, Gaelic, Czech, Slovak, etc.: many see English as unusually irregular; others argue every language has its own quirks.
  • Spelling reform is widely viewed as politically and practically difficult; humorous “phonetic reform” passages illustrate how quickly such projects become extreme.

Cross-language sound confusions

  • Several threads cover V/W confusions: Indians (Hindi /ʋ/), Czechs, Germans, Dutch, Swedes, and English speakers in other languages.
  • More general pronunciation traps appear in Slavic “soft vs hard” consonants, Hebrew variants of L, and Portuguese nasal vowels.