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When spelling, every letter in the Alphabet is pronounced by a single syllable, with the only exception of W being pronounced "double-U". (Fun fact, in German it's approximately pronounced like the "ve" in very, but in some strike of cosmic justice Y is pronounced "Yps-e-lon") Why is that? Is there any at least semi-officially accepted one-syllable alternative pronunciation of W?

I checked some related post, e.g. this one, but they are more concerned with the "Why?" instead of the "Why not different?"

Community
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Tobias Kienzler
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  • I heard many people using the pronunciation of "v" instead whenever the context is clear (like saying vvv instead of www when referring to a URL). – some user Aug 07 '12 at 10:14
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    So, um, what is the question we should answer? If it's the one in the title, then WWW is sometimes pronounced dub-dub-dub. If it's the "why is that", the answer can be found in this question, and the one linked from there, and on Wikipedia, too. And if it's "why not different", then I don't know how we can possibly answer that. Why don't we say "car" to mean "generosity"? – RegDwigнt Aug 07 '12 at 10:14
  • @RegDwightАΑA sorry, I emphasized it now: Is there any single-syllable pronunciation of W that is more or less official? Actually swapping the meaning of car and generosity could make the world a better place - "I need my generosity fueled up, be car about it" :-7 – Tobias Kienzler Aug 07 '12 at 10:20
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    Thanks. "Some [...] shorten the name 'double u' into 'dub' only; for example, [the Universities of Washington, Wyoming and Western Australia] are all known colloquially as 'U Dub', and [VW] is sometimes pronounced 'V-Dub'. Many others, however, prefer to pronounce the w as dub-u, reducing it to two syllables. For example, www would be six syllables rather than nine, being pronounced dub-u dub-u dub-u. George W. Bush has been given the nickname 'Dubya', after the colloquial pronunciation of W in Texas." (Wikipedia) Not much we can add to that, I'm afraid. – RegDwigнt Aug 07 '12 at 10:24
  • Thanks, then I'd accept that as answer. I propose the German pronounciation, by the way, but I'm biased... – Tobias Kienzler Aug 07 '12 at 10:26
  • In English we neither have official language rules nor do we accept proposals. English just is what it is. (And we call that letter double-u). – Mark Beadles Aug 07 '12 at 17:18
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    @canpolat You heard people pronouncing English "www" as /vivivi/ where, exactly? – Mark Beadles Aug 07 '12 at 17:21
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    @MarkBeadles Not in a country where English is the official language. – some user Aug 07 '12 at 18:16
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    @MarkBeadles No offence meant, I'd pronounce Y "why" in German in exchange :-P – Tobias Kienzler Aug 07 '12 at 18:39
  • @TobiasKienzler Fair enough, I don't like Y anyway ;) – Mark Beadles Aug 07 '12 at 19:40

4 Answers4

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Sometimes if a university is located in the area which name starts with W, such university is called informally U-Dub.

This is the only case I can recall. But I don't believe that using "dub" instead of "double u" is common (or even exists) in any other context. Though I'm not a native speaker.

Here is quote from Wikipedia:

"Double U" is the only English letter name with more than one syllable, except for the occasionally used, though somewhat archaic, "œ" (its name is pronounced similar to "ethel"), and the archaic pronunciation of Z izzard.

Also, in Wikipedia, in addition to "U-Dub" example, it is mentioned that Volkswagen is also sometimes called "V-Dub".

As for the "but-why?!!" part of the question I guess nobody can answer you anything but: "for historical reasons".

shabunc
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The letter W is known in the NATO phonetic alphabet as "whiskey". I am not sure if that counts as "semi-officially accepted" though.

Elias Zamaria
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    I was surprised, when scanning the answers, that this wasn't mentioned earlier! The NATO phonetic alphabet is effectively used in civilian situations as well, for instance in air traffic control. It is interesting to note that that phonetic alphabet was designed to mitigate miscommunication because of pronunciation and most letters are pronounced in a longer way than their standard English way: the U becomes the trisyllabic uniform, the N becomes November. But the double-U is the exception :) – oerkelens Sep 08 '14 at 07:15
  • Amateur radio operator here. I'm not sure that I'd call the NATO phonetic alphabet a form of abbreviation, although it functions as that with the letter W :) . We use it to increase clarity on poor voice connections or in situations where speakers speak with poor clarity or with an accent. Many letters sound similar to each other on the air. I note many American hams say Z as "zed" when not using phonetics, just because it's so much easier to distinguish from C. – Jim MacKenzie Jun 20 '17 at 17:17
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In Primary School here in england, the kids often say the alpheabet like ah, buh, cuh, duh, eh,fu, guh etc. rather than Ay, Bee, Cee, Dee, Eee, Eff, Gee, following that primary school notation, DoubleU could be shortened to wuh.

David Watts
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  • How could 'wuh' be distinguished from 'vuh' in that case? – some user Aug 07 '12 at 16:52
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    @canpolat You do know that in English "w" and "v" aren't pronounced the same? "wuh" and "vuh" would be distinguished by their first letter. – Mark Beadles Aug 07 '12 at 17:20
  • @MarkBeadles Yes, I know they are not pronounced the same, but still the difference doesn't sound to be a significant one to me (I'm not a native English speaker). But if 'muh' and 'nuh' can be distinguished, I guess, it would also be possible for 'vuh' and 'wuh'... – some user Aug 07 '12 at 18:14
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    @canpolat To fluent speakers v and w are entirely distinct, yes. – Mark Beadles Aug 07 '12 at 18:27
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    They are totally different sounds. In England, V is a Vee sound a W is a Wuh sound, so they are not interchangeable here – David Watts Aug 08 '12 at 09:10
  • @Kris Lets take a word as an example. the word World, using the W at the beginning is pronounced "wuhrled" as with a V in the place of the W, it would be pronounced "Vurled" and would sound like a british person doing a bad German accent. – David Watts Oct 08 '12 at 10:48
  • @David Watts, were you being deliberately ironic in spelling the pronunciation of the letters using the letters themselves, thereby being of no benefit at all? :) – Phil M Jones Sep 08 '14 at 09:56
  • @PhilMJones: I don't think there is irony involved, but rather a serious teaching strategy that describes how children can be taught the sound of those squiggly thingees called letters. Calling the "W" squiggly a "double-you" does not help a learner trying to figure out the pronunication of the word W-A-S. It is pronounced much closer to "wuh ah sss" than "doubleyou-aay-es". It obviously makes sense when pronouncing then rather than writing them. But spelling a word in written form is called writing and we generally use the letters themselves for that... – oerkelens Sep 08 '14 at 11:05
  • @PhilMJones In Old English they actually used two u for some time when transcribing the Wunjō rune, but later switched to Wynn (Ƿ) and then W. And if you spell the English 'was' as uuas you get a good approximation of how to pronounce it (it's a diphthong, i.e. the vowels flow into one another, keep your lips in a O-shape; contrast that to V where you (nearly) touch your upper teeth to your lower lip). – S22h Sep 08 '14 at 12:29
  • @oerkelens you are right that you can teach someone how to pronounce the letters by saying them, but you can't do the same in text by writing out how to pronounce them using words that contain the letters being taught. Read David's post again with as a German might, who doesn't know how the letters are pronounced in English, and it still makes sense, even if the letters V and W are pronounced wrongly. – Phil M Jones Sep 08 '14 at 13:23
  • @PhilMJones: David's answer mentions "kids often say". I don't understand what is ironic about it. Short from including an audio file in his answer, I don't see how his answer could be more clearly referring to speaking rather than writing. – oerkelens Sep 08 '14 at 13:26
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    @Gartram In Welsh (my father's first language) a W is pronounced like the "oo" in "look" (ʊ), as in the word "cwm" (mountain). It is pronounced exactly the same, although a little shorter, in combination with other vowels, e.g. "wedyn" is correctly pronounced "ooeddin", which is almost the same as the English would say "weddin", but a little longer. I don't think I've explained that very well, but it's very similar to your "uuas" explanation. – Phil M Jones Sep 08 '14 at 13:30
  • @oerlekens Ah, I was referring to his comments, 1 and 3 places above mine, not his original answer. Apologies for the confusion. – Phil M Jones Sep 08 '14 at 13:32
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It does describe quite accurately what it looks like - a double v or a double u.

I can't find any historical guidance on why another word wasn't used, but it isn't unique: In Spanish it is 'doble-be', where 'v' is 'be'

Rory Alsop
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  • That is a bit Latin-American: in Spain it is uve doble, though only used in loanwords. – Henry Aug 07 '12 at 11:03
  • Ahh - I did learn Spanish in the Falklands, so it probably was heavily biased towards Argentinian :-) – Rory Alsop Aug 07 '12 at 11:04
  • That shape-description may be true, but you wouldn't call Y "Flux Capacitor Component", would you? :-P But yes, I understand that it's historically like this, I was just wondering if the was no alternative - BE vs AE pronounce Z different as well – Tobias Kienzler Aug 08 '12 at 10:22