
'W' Considered Harmful - santigepigon
http://runningwithdata.com/post/3576752158/w
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mappum
Let's make a movement to call W "wub". It uses its own sound, it is one
syllable, and it sounds like "dub" (as in "double U"). As a bonus side effect,
"www" will sound like dubstep.

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dynofuz
i love it. very easy transition from dub dub dub

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fein
Can this be like Soda vs Pop?

We can get the dubs and wubs together and have a rave.

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rcthompson
Wait a minute, there are significant backward-compatibility concerns to be
addressed before we shorten the pronunciation of "W". How will we fill the
extra two syllables in the ABC song?

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maaku
Maybe we can enunciate L-M-N-O-P instead of running them all together?

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jaibot
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i0r8egBvWRM&feature=youtube_...](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i0r8egBvWRM&feature=youtube_gdata_player)

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bcoates
_the only letter whose name doesn’t include the sound it makes_

I'm trying to figure out if the author pronounces H with a Tom Brokaw "haitch"
or an Elvis Presley "aitchuhh".

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dragonwriter
And, of course, w's name _does_ contain one of the vowel sounds that w forms
(the long u), just like y's does (the long i). Neither of those letters name
contains their own consonant sound.

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jeorgun
Wait, when does 'w' make the sound [u] (as opposed to [w] or [ʊ])?

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chalst
If you allow it to be assisted by another letter (as we must in the case of
Q), "few" rhymes with "you".

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gojomo
_…the abbreviation_ www _requires_ nine _syllables to say…_

Not if you regroup the _u_ s to 'sextuple-u'.

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batbomb
3 yew squared

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troels
That would be nine.

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plorkyeran
It has always annoyed me that "world wide web" is significantly faster to say
than "www".

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Zenst
Yes but is great fun seeing people say out web address's. Ah the early days
when they spelt out the [http://](http://) part as well.

If it was realy a bother though somebody would of pulled a Prince and called
it squiggle.

ALl this though is based upon English use of the letter W, sure other
languages have there own quirks and idiosims.

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Torn
* Would have pulled a Prince

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troels
Completely off topic here, but why is it that people some times write "would
of" instead of "would have"? Is it something you would use in spoken language?
And where?

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bazzargh
Would have is abbreviated "would've", which is pronounced similarly. I expect
people get it from hearing that before seeing it written.

~~~
Zenst
You may very well be right. I use it without thinking and with that I suppose
it is a form of slang variation in usage. Though my grammer and spelling are
below par and I do find my native English language a fun feild of rules with
so many exceptions that if it was code it would be the worst code ever. That
and even today we still do not have a definitive grammer/spell checker that
can understand all context and usage. Yet we can put a man on the moon and
develop advanced AI that gets better every day.

Though I'm starting too feel that you may be right in how this permutation of
words originated, given language accents and localisations pre internet days.

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troels
Thanks. If you also use it in speech, then it strongly suggests that it's
simply because would've sounds similar to would of. To humour me, would you
mind saying where you're from?

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Zenst
England, East Anglia

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troymc
The National Association Of W Lovers is not going to be happy about this.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bkiCTDcV51k](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bkiCTDcV51k)

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freiheit
Well, aren't they always unhappy about _something_ , anyways?

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dynofuz
thats why i just say dub dub dub for www. There couldnt be a worse standard
subdomain. Also great article.. if you are interested in measuring words and
speech, we should talk ;)

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maaku
Save a syllable: trip-dub.

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olefoo
Which sounds like it could be a rather appealing genre of music.

Wub-wub-Wub-wub in the sky with diamonds.

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ddeck
This makes me wonder how confusing it must be for Bassant's Removals & Storage
to explain their website URL over the phone...[1]

[1]
[http://www.doubleyoudoubleyoudoubleyou.com/](http://www.doubleyoudoubleyoudoubleyou.com/)

~~~
teddyh
Or slashdot.

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iv_08
Just give it a more efficient name. In German it's referred to as [veː].

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effn
We do this in Sweden too. WWW is pronounced VVV and the car manufacturer is
pronounced BMV.

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bitwize
"wubba wubba wubba dot google dot com"

Also, the Latin alphabet is used by many languages, in which other letters
have more than one syllable: off the top of my head, Spanish has many (not to
mention things they count as letters that we don't), and French has _i grec_
for _y_.

~~~
gordaco
F, H, J, L, M, N, Ñ, R, S, V, W, X, Y, Z (and Y is also _i griega_ here).
Those are the letters whose name has more than one syllable: more than half of
them. In particular, W has _four_ syllables (U-ve do-ble). So please stop
whining, English speakers all over the world :).

On a side note, the article's comments mention something very important: the
"www" didn't originate in an English-speaking country, so it's not that is
"harmful" because someone didn't think it properly; instead, it's "harmful" in
English because it just wasn't thought with that language in mind.

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KamiCrit
Who would worry with 'W'?

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Hellenion
What's more is that 'W' (and 'M') mess up every compact monospaced font.

