Tuesday, October 12, 2010

Why 'W' is called 'Double U'

I was caught in the web of words that Dictionary.com has strung up for us, i.e. clicking from link to link, and I discovered this little piece of info (which is new to me, but maybe not for you).

 W 

In Old English, 'wynn' (ƿ) was a character that represented the sound 'w', that we know today as double-u. This was because 'wynn' was replaced by 'uu' which eventually developed into the modern letter 'w'. You can read more here.

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