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Double U

Cambridge Classics

Wonderfully Wacky Way With Words

This linguistic curiosity is an anonymous composition which was published in Everybody's Scrapbook of Curious Facts, compiled by Don Lemon, in the late 19th century. The unknown author achieves the astonishing feat of writing a 479 word story, using only words which begin with 'W', with only 17 hyphenated compounds.

The story was reprinted in 'The Guardian' newspaper in 1991, in an article written by Robert Richardson. It is followed here by a brief discussion on the history of 'w' as an initial letter. It would be appreciated if any citation would acknowledge the sources in the normal academic way.

Winnie and Walter

"Warm weather, Walter! Welcome warm weather! We were wishing winter would wane, weren't we?"

"We were well wearied with waiting," whispered Waiter wearily. Wan, white, woe-begone was Walter; wayward, wilful, worn with weakness, wasted, waxing weaker whenever winter's wild, withering winds were wailing. Wholly without waywardness was Winifred, Walter's wise, womanly watcher, who, with winsome, wooing way, was well-beloved.

"We won't wait, Walter; while weather's warm we'll wander where woodlands wave, won't we?"

Walter's wanton wretchedness wholly waned. "Why, Winnie, we'll walk where we went when we were with Willie; we'll weave wildflower wreaths, watch woodmen working; woodlice, worms wriggling; windmills whirling; watermills wheeling; we will win wild whortleberries, witness wheat winnowed."

Wisbeach woods were wild with wildflowers; warm, westerly winds whispered where willows were waving; wood-pigeons, wrens, woodpeckers were warbling wild woodnotes. Where Wisbeach water-mill's waters, which were wholly waveless, widened, were waterlilies, waxen white. Winifred wove wreaths with woodbine, whitehorn, wallflowers; whilst Walter whittled wooden wedges with willow wands.

Wholly without warning, wild wet winds woke within Wisbeach woods, whistling where Winifred wandered with Walter; weeping willows were wailing weirdly; waging war with wind-tossed waters. Winifred's wary watchfulness waked.

"Walter, we won't wait."
"Which way, Winnie?"

Winifred wavered. "Why, where were we wandering? Wisbeach woods widen whichever way we walk. Where's Wisbeach white wicket, where's Winston's water-mill?"

WistfuIly, Walter witnessed Winifred's wonder. "Winnie, Winnie, we were wrong, wholly wrong; wandering within wild ways. Wayfaring weather-beaten waifs, well-nigh worn-out."

Winifred waited where, within wattled woodwork walls, waggons, wheelbarrows, wains were waiting, weighty with withered wood. Walter, warmly wrapped with Winifred's well-worn wadded waterproof, was wailing woefully, wholly wearied. Winnie, who, worn with watching, well-nigh weeping, was wistfully, wakefully waiting Willie's well-known whistle, wholly wished Walter's well-being warranted.

With well-timed wisdom, Walter was wound with wide, worsted wrappers, which wonderfully well withstood winter's withering, whistling winds. Wholly without warm wrappers was Winifred, who, with womanly wisdom, was watching Walter's welfare, warding Walter's weakness.

"When will Willie wend where we wait?" wearily wondered Walter.
"Whist, Walter," whispered Winnie, "who was whooping?"
"Whereabouts?"

Welcome whistling was waking Wisbeach woods when winter's windy warfare waxed weaker.

"Winnie! Walter!"

Winifred's wakefulness was well-grounded. "We're well, Willie; we're where Winston's waggons wait."

Without waiting, Willie was within Winston's woodwork walls.

"Welcome, welcome, Willie." Winnie was weeping with weariness with watching Walter, weak with wayfaring.

"Why Winnie! Wise, watchful, warm-hearted Winnie," Willie whispered wheedlingly. "We won't weep; Walter's well. What were Walter without Winnie?"

Wholly wonderful was Winifred's well-timed womanly wisdom, which well warranted weakly Walter's welfare. Whenever wandering within Wisbeach woods with Winnie, Walter would whisper, "What were Walter without Winnie? Wise, watchful, warm-hearted Winnie!"

A Note on Initial 'W'

The origin of the written letter in English is really 'double U': the 'W' sound of Classical Latin was represented by either 'U' or 'V' (so Caesar's 'veni, vidi, vici' was pronounced 'weni widi wici'), but in Mediaeval Latin the sound had become a 'V'. Both letters v and u were therefore ambiguous, and the sound was in Early English written as 'uu', or by the Runic symbol known as wyn. By the 14th century the modern ligatured form had become standard. The sound existed in early Greek, represented by the 'digamma' (so called from its F shape, which looks rather like a double gamma), and was still spoken in Homeric Greek (as may be determined from the lack of elision in phrases like eni oikoi, 'in the house', at Iliad 1.30, where eni is not elided because oikos was pronounced 'woikos'). It did not exist in Attic Greek as a consonant.

Its phonetic description would be as a semi-vowel (vowel-like sound, consonant-like function), which is labio-velar (sound produced by the back of the tongue against the soft palate, with lip rounding).

English initial 'wh' was written 'hw' (which more accurately represents the sound) until the late 13th century. It is particularly associated with interrogative words (when, where, what, why, who). The sound may be described as an unvoiced version of 'w' (because the velar sound is preceded by a silent breath), but it is now sometimes pronounced as 'w', without the initial breath: 'which' and 'witch' sound identical in the British RP accent. It has an etymological connection with 'qu', which begins some Latin interrogatives (quis 'who', qui 'why'). In early Germanic the 'kw' sound had mutated through 'chw' to 'hw'. In Middle English 'when' and 'what' could be spelt as 'quan' and 'quat'; and conversely 'quick' and 'quite' were in some dialects written as 'whik' and 'white'.

Initial 'wh' followed by the vowel 'O' has a related origin. 'Who, whole, whore' are derived from earlier 'qu' words, and the digraph is pronounced as 'H', which was their original English spelling. They were not spelt with a 'w' until the 15th century.

Such processes of phonetic change were first mapped by the 19th century philologists as 'sound laws'. The point about a change like 'qu' to 'chw' to 'hw' is that the sounds are all articulated in the same way, but with progressively less contact between the tongue and the velum: one might describe it as a kind of systematic muscular laziness (or efficiency, if a less negative word is preferred). This particular change shows a stopped sound becoming a fricative, and then an aspirate, mapped as part of a more general sound movement in 'Grimm's Law', formulated in 1822 by Jakob Grimm (better known for Grimm's Fairy Tales).

The digamma as a written character has a history which diverges completely from its original expression of the 'w' sound, because the Romans used it to represent labiodental 'F', as in Modern English. When they adapted the Greek alphabet, they used 'u' or 'v' to represent the semi-vowel as well as the vowel 'u', so the digamma appears to have been a spare character available for 'F', which was not pronounced in Classical Greek (but that is another story...).

More information on the different English forms may be found in the Oxford English Dictionary. A brief discussion of the early history of the digamma may be found in:
Allen, W. Sidney (1987) Vox Graeca, 3rd edition, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press (pp.47-51), and a discussion of the Greek character phi and its relation to the sound 'F' may be found on pp 18-26.
The possibility that sound changes may be motivated by economy of effort is discussed by A. Martinet, Economie des changements phonétiques, 1955.

Bruce Fraser. Last updated: 9 June 1997

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