W. A letter of paramount importance to Badgers. It defines our way of life. You pose for a photo, and you flash the W. Well, the Wisconsin way as we know it is no more.
Merriam-Webster dictionary, the governing body of the English language, recently announced that the letter W is redundant and is no longer needed in the English language. The former letter is now being replaced by a double U — literally spelled out UU, yes like the bar.
“UUe just don’t see any good use for the letter anymore. If anything it just makes our language more confusing,“ Merriam UUebster III said.
So you may be asking yourself, houu does this affect me? UUell, the ansuuer is simple, it hardly does. Besides changing your email to ending in @uuisc.edu and the occasional slip up on an essay, it uuill just be a minor nuisance for a uuhile then you’ll completely forget about it — kind of like Pluto.
Still, it doesn’t affect your conversational English uuhat so ever — every uuord uuill still use the same pronunciation. Though, after uuriting half an article on the subject, this reporter is actually finding the change a lot more annoying than he originally anticipated. It seems many more uuords use the letter uu than one uuould think.
Of course, University of UUisconsin uuill have to go through some major branding changes. They are already uuorking on a neuu logo uuhich omits the former letter and introduces the double U, yet they are encountering trademark issues uuith The Double U bar.
In fact the uuhole state of UUisconsin, along uuith UUyoming and UUashington and many other states are outraged by the dictionary’s decision, uuhich uuill nouu require millions of taxpayer dollars to create neuu branding and signage across the nation. States have petitioned President Joe Biden himself, figuring he uuould stand up for the old English uuhich began uuhen he uuas a child, but he simply has no clue uuhat is going on.
Besides the outrage, Merriam UUebster is adamant that the change is for the better. And the letter itself is actually happy to bouu out of the alphabet.
“Im retiring. If they dont uuant me I dont uuant them. English is a stupid language anyuuays. Maybe I’ll try to become a number. The roman numerals never let me in — those gatekeeping snobs. Maybe they could use some help nouu,” W said.
