Ay, bee, cee, dee, ee, eff, gee. As you continue through the alphabet, all the letter names are monosyllabic. Then what, friends, bakers, country(wo)men, is up with 'w'?
I recommend the name 'wee.' And not just because I like saying _wee_. There are reasons, but they're so complexicated, they'd blow your minds.
And regarding the alphabet song: If you don't pause at the end where one does to say 'double-yoo,' the song sounds fine.
Thanks.-- watermelancholy, Aug 02 2002 W http://www.csufresn...ograms/default.htmlGood morning, ladies and gentlemen. [reensure, Aug 02 2002] pseudodictionary http://www.pseudodictionary.comA halfbakery for words [thumbwax, Aug 03 2002] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digamma [pertinax, Jul 07 2007] too-vee-- thumbwax, Aug 02 2002 What the hell, to follow suit means only that I'll still be the first on my block. Might as well enjoy it.-- reensure, Aug 02 2002 And [Steve] said it; and thus, it was law. And the people of Halfbakeristan rejoiced.-- watermelancholy, Aug 02 2002 Christ, this neighbourhood's gone all to hell since I left. Didn't miss much then?-- notripe, Aug 02 2002 should I be offended, miss tripe?-- watermelancholy, Aug 02 2002 miss actually, but of course not, but I'd like to hear the complexicated reasons, as I'm rather fond of ze-bed-ee instead of zed or zee myself. That being said, you've encouraged me to encourage myself out to the pub. thanks.-- notripe, Aug 02 2002 Wee could call him George Wee Bush.
Or wee could go the other way, M would be upsidedowndoubleyoo, X would be doubleyoopointtopoint, C would be halfoh...-- FarmerJohn, Aug 02 2002 2V or not 2V That is the ?-- thumbwax, Aug 02 2002 from a wee double v...... what makes us rather bear the ills wee have, then fly, why?, to v'entures that wee know not of?
jealousy......? aye, there's the rub.-- rubyissues, Aug 03 2002 Get your hands off my w, you wascally watermelancholy.
(Love that name, btw.) (Pronounced bee-tee-double-you).
The only three syllable letter is precisely the reason for its uniqueness, why it reigns supreme over all of the other letters. Except possibly A. Being first counts for something.
I wish we had more double-? letters, like double-B or double-H.-- waugsqueke, Aug 03 2002 Well, they have that "SZ" character in German; does that count?-- angel, Aug 04 2002 And the Skandinavian "AE" & "OE".-- FarmerJohn, Aug 04 2002 Æ挜-- thumbwax, Aug 04 2002 Spanish pronunciation: DObleve (double V)
He could change his name to a symbol a la that guy who used to be Prince but now is Prince...
Wee could call him eeW.
Or just call him Dubya. It has a certain redneck charm to it?-- polartomato, Aug 05 2002 I've said it before and I'll say it againWa-- thumbwax, Aug 05 2002 What is it good for?-- pottedstu, Aug 05 2002 Absolutely nuthin'.-- angel, Aug 05 2002 If it were 'wa', then some accents could get it confused with the letter 'y'. I think 'wee' is good. And I think this is a serious issue, because 'double u' is a seriously pathetic and decidedly unoriginal name for a letter of the alphabet, as very well illustrated by Farmer John. And everyone else.-- Eronel, Aug 05 2002 Why the fishboning? It looks like wee all agree that "double-yoo" is a stupid name for a letter that is really a couple of v's anyway.
Along with Steve, I think H, Q, and Y need new names, too. Hee, Quee, & Yee?-- XSarenkaX, Aug 05 2002 Wouldn't it be simpler to use the FAA/ITU/ICAO phonetic alphabet that policemen and pilots do? Then it would be Whiskey not Double-U. Variation in letter-names is good, not bad.-- pottedstu, Aug 05 2002 Good God, y'all.-- waugsqueke, Aug 06 2002 pottedstu: Excellent suggestion. It should be taught to youngsters in schools as it greatly simplifies spelling out names etc. over the telephone.
On topic, there's nothing at all wrong with this sensible and reasonable idea and I'm saddned to see it's been fishboned at all, so I shall award a croissant.-- 8th of 7, Aug 06 2002 Alpha, Bravo, Charlie, Delta, Echo, Foxtrot, Golf Hotel, India, Juliet, Kilo ~ Lima-Mike-November-Oscar-Papa Quebec, Romeo, Sierra, Tango, Uniform and Victor Whiskey, Xray, Yankee and Zulu Now I know my Alpha, Bravo, Charlie's Next time won't you sing with me?-- thumbwax, Aug 07 2002 isn't waugsqueke complicated enough without making him scotchwhiskeyaugsqueke? and I become papa oscar? heaven help 8thof7.
BTW thumb is there a code for the numerals?-- po, Aug 07 2002 Speak and Spell's pronounce it "Wubbleyou"-- Mr Burns, Aug 07 2002 [thumbwax], care to give me the relevance of your link to pseudodic.? I don't believe it's suitable, really. And may I hear the reasoning for seven Nays? Because I don't see a flaw in this. The change would be painless, because frankly, it doesn't make a big difference.-- watermelancholy, Aug 07 2002 Trivia to forget: In Sweden, they use boy's names.Adam, Bertil, Ceasar, David, Erik, Fredrik, Gustav, Harald, Ivar, Johan, Karl, Ludvig, Martin, Nicklas, Olof, Petrus, Qvintus, Rudolf, Sigurd, Tore, Urban, Viktor, Wilhelm, Xerxes, Yngve, Z(seta), Åke, Ärling, Östen. W is double-vee.-- FarmerJohn, Aug 07 2002 I still like "wubbleyew."
(damn, thcgenius got there first..)-- yamahito, Aug 07 2002 yama: with the number of annos before me, it's hard to believe no one else posted it first.-- Mr Burns, Aug 07 2002 //relevance of your link to pseudodic// It's where I've been pointed when I've posted ideas along similar lines, is all.^Hands whiskeyatermelancholy a Charlieroissant^-- thumbwax, Aug 08 2002 and we should change "A" to "Ay bro".-- amazing, Aug 08 2002 My main objection, and accompanying fishbone, are sourced at the fact that a proposed new name for a letter is a very shaky idea... it sort of is, but it sort of isn't a new idea, even if I generally agree with the author on his point... and I admit that one of my recent ideas may be described in this fashion as well... I think that the letter formerly known as dubbleyou has gotten exactly the rating it deserves, at least on this page: a partial croissant. Anyway it isn't the ratings that make the difference, is it? It's the thought that counts, and the annotating it spurs. In that way, this idea has been a success.-- polartomato, Aug 08 2002 The main reason we have these stupid letter-names is because english is a context-based language. By the way. Can anyone spell fish? I can:
"Ghoti"
Rough Women Notion
Think about it.-- thelumberjack, Aug 08 2002 ...Now I know my alpine, bumblebee, curvatures, next time won't you sing with me?
I guess the next logical step is a revised alphabet song... heh heh.
And maybe an alphabet song made up of rude words, A to Z? I dunno.
Mephista, is that non-boring enough for you, for PeteSealy's sake?-- polartomato, Aug 08 2002 [meph], that's doubly as offensive as if you'd simply fishboned me and walked away. And fish could be spelled 'ghoti':
The gh from "enough," the o from "women," and the ti from "initiative". Sorry to spoil your fun.-- watermelancholy, Aug 08 2002 "viv"-- bristolz, Aug 24 2002 Hey good idea. Anything as long as its not 'Wuh'.
I'd also vote for Memphista's alphabet. It would be important to rename all the punctuation as well, like INTERCAL.-- Loris, Aug 24 2002 I'd like to sugest 'Wah' as the new name for 'W'. It doesn't conflict with anything, and sounds cool.
[thelumberjack]: That doesn't work. English has laws of pronounciation that mere mortals such as ourselves can barely imagine.-- dbmag9, Oct 27 2006 In Archaic Greek (before classical Ancient Greek), there was a letter that looked like an 'F' but was pronounced like a 'W', and was called 'Wau', apparently. (link)-- pertinax, Jul 07 2007 English has imported an oddball no-vowel word, "cwm" (from Welsh, I think) which is pronounced "koom". From the sound of it, I'm guessing it's possible that at one time the word was spelled "cuum"; notice the similarity between that and the word "vacuum". So the name "double-yu" could quite literally imply two consecutive letters "u", and sloppiness in language-use/writing over the centuries led to the current letter "w" and its mismatched name.-- Vernon, Jul 07 2007 Cwm. Vacuum. Interesting, never really cottoned on to that. I suspect you're right.-- wagster, Jul 07 2007 "duh"-- nuclear hobo, Jul 07 2007 ...but aren't naming schemes taboo here?...-- xandram, Jul 07 2007 Yeah. But this is one that'll just come back if we delete it (along with "have an .xxx toplevel domain" or "pronounce www as <insert clever, 15-year old idea here>".) So, what the hell.-- jutta, Jul 07 2007 I thought I was the only one that said complexicated...
I think either double "U"s should be drawn as they are were meant to be drawn, or the name should be changed to double "V".-- BJS, Jul 07 2007 Heh, double "u"s are drawn when you write in cursive style. Of course the "v"s kind of look like "u"s also, so I know I'm out on a limb saying that, heh.-- Vernon, Jul 08 2007 //the name should be changed to double "V"//
Already done by the French, I think.
//sloppiness in language-use/writing over the centuries//
No, I think 'W' just is a vowel in Welsh, just as 'L' and 'R' are vowels in some Eastern European languages (ever heard of a place called Przmysl?)
The scholarly consensus when I last looked is that in Classical Latin, (where 'V' and 'U' are actually one and the same letter, the difference being that 'V' is easier to carve on stone), that letter was pronounced in much the same way as the Welsh 'W' (i.e., as a lip-rounded 'U' sound where the context requires a vowel). However, be advised that this consensus seems to shift every couple of generations, for reasons unknown to me.
//Cwm. Vacuum. Interesting// but mistaken.
There is no 'W' in Classical Latin, which makes sense, given that the 'V/U' was already doing that job. The two 'U's of 'vacuum' indicate two separate syllables.-- pertinax, Jul 08 2007 As in 'vac-you-oom', from Algonquin, which is loosely translated as "large space between ears".-- nuclear hobo, Jul 08 2007 //traslated//
I believe the "s" is pronounced "sh."-- csea, Jul 08 2007 random, halfbakery