Submitted by richardcaburet  •  October 2, 2005

letters

Why is w pronounced double u, but m is not pronounced double n?

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Ben  (unregistered)

September 18, 2007, 2:05pm

But they didn't, of course.

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Jason  (unregistered)

September 19, 2007, 11:28am

Interesting. So why do the French pronouce "W" as "doobleh-vay" - while pronouncing "U" as "oo" and "V" as "vay?"

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Daniel  (unregistered)

October 2, 2005, 12:45pm

in older versions of english, there was no "W." instead the sound was made by putting two "U"s together. at one point they combined UU and made it W.

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DJjothic  (unregistered)

October 2, 2005, 2:50pm

Why do they even call it Double-U if all it is is two V's put together?

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good  (unregistered)

October 8, 2005, 2:38pm

Quote: "Why do they even call it Double-U if all it is is two V's put together?

V was the symbol for U long ago. They got a lot of mileage out of it too, until V, U and W officially became three separate letters. If you look at some old monuments you'll see all sorts of V's where there would now be U's.

"E PLVRIBVS VNVM." Just kind of rolls off the tongue, don't it?

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good  (unregistered)

October 8, 2005, 2:57pm

M was never two N's. They were always different letters. But when "W" was still "UU" and looked more like "VV", one would write:

"VVE DID IT! VVE VVON THE VVAR!"

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