One of the few things I remember from my French classes in high school was that the letter is called “double V” in that language. Why did English opt for the “U” instead?
You can hear the French pronunciation here if you’re unfamiliar with it:
https://www.frenchlearner.com/pronunciation/french-alphabet/
V and W are right next to each other in alphabetical order, which seems to lend further credence to the idea that it should be “Double V” and not “Double U”. In fact, the letter U immediately precedes V, so the difference is highlighted in real-time as you go through the alphabet:
- …
- U
- V
- W
- X
- Y
- Z
It’s obviously not at all important in the grand scheme of things, but I’m just curious why we went the way we did!
Cheers!
That’s how you write it in cursive. You know for us that are old enough to remember what cursive was.
Not just cursive; lower case “W” is often written uu. It just depends on the style of the writer.
Whats the keyboard shortcut for that?
“uu” ends on a down stroke. W ends on an upstroke, just like the difference between u and v.
What do you mean “old enough to remember what cursive was”
How else are people writing
Print, because we use ballpoints instead of fountain pens, unlike a Luddite.
Part of the reason cursive was dropped is that ballpoints require more hand pressure to write with- you’re gouging the paper to make the little ball roll.
Ballpoint pens are neater and simply better in most respects. The smooth gliding action in a fountain makes cursive easy, fast and with practice, elegant.
But you can’t do that for as long with print characters- it’ll cause hand cramps after a while.
Which, also, we now type or tap out our documents with print being adequate for everything except… uh… artistic expression?
Schools only have so much time to teach, including yet another form of handwriting means excluding other things.
Cursive was dropped because everyone uses computers and phones now, almost nobody bothers to write with a pen at all beyond signing their name on government or corporate documents
cursive’s decline began well before computers, though. around the time ballpoints became common and dominant. which they were more consistent, convenient and significantly less messy (ever refill a fountain pen? they also tended to leak. A lot.)
when I was learning it, the teachers explicitly stated that we’d never actually use it. it’s had this weird cult following of people insisting its some how useful or whatever. It’s about as useful as a slide rule, or clay tablets.
FWIW, I still take notes by hand rather than computer, even if I have my computer out. but it’s easier to add sketches or figures or whatever. But yeah, for actual communication, it’s digital.
It may be a country difference
Schools still teach cursive in mine
Schools in my country also recommend not using ballpoint pens
In the states, the question is largely left to individual states. It was dropped from common core (the federal standards that are… laughable.)
It’s harmful except that schools have a fairly limited instructional time and teaching one thing excludes another.
In my experience, a lot of the people that insist cursive is necessary are people that want to exclude certain things.
Schools do teach, and once students are out of elementary school they never write a letter of cursive again. So in effect, it could’ve been not taught at all.
I don’t remember the last time I wrote anything by hand tbh