• Smee
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    4 days ago

    Why do people say double “U” when they mean a double “V”?

    • Skua@kbin.earth
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      4 days ago

      There was no distinction between V and U when W first started being used. They were considered the same letter, with V just being the style for writing it at the start of words (like that long S that looks like an f). So you would write “have” as haue and “upon” as vpon.

      When it was representing a consonant in classical Latin, it sounded like a modern English W. So the famous veni vidi vici - I came, I saw, I conquered - was pronounced more like wenee weedee weekee.

      Eventually the V sound started to emerge in some places where Latin and its descendants had used that W sound before, and people started treating the two forms as different letters. By this point the W was already in widespread use, though, so whatever people already called it had a good chance of sticking

    • Lyra_Lycan@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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      4 days ago

      In German (and no doubt countless other languages) it is ‘double v’. So to answer your question: The English language is flawed and for most people, it’s too jarring to correct it