And why is the W silent anyways?
The ⟨W⟩ is silent now, but it wasn’t until 1500 or so. Back then the word was pronounced /two:/; it would almost rhyme with contemporary “toe”. But then that /o:/ became /u:/ (the modern pronunciation), due to the Great Vowel Shift, and since /w/ and /u/ are really similar they fused together.
@FourPacketsOfPeanuts@lemmy.world mentioned that in a few associated words that ⟨W⟩ letter still represents an actual /w/ phoneme, note how the following vowel is different - that blocked the “fusion”.
Curiously in words related to ‘two’ the W is often pronounced!
Twin, Twixt, Between, Twelve etc
By the argument, is the w in “two” actually silent? What would it sounds like when pronounced? I think it would sound like “two” already does.
It would sound like “twu” as in “twu wuv”
Lol.
OK, Impressive Clergyman!
Mawwiage!
I don’t necessarily think so. If the W was pronounced, I think it would sound something more like ‘tawoo’ or ‘teewoo’
twoah
hawk twoah
Spell out that thang!
Side question?
Does twelve basically mean two eleven?
Twelve’s root is in meaning “two left”. And similarly eleven’s origin is meaning “one left”. In both cases left over from ten, the base unit of counting.
Interesting. This sorta makes sense actually.
Curious though, do you have a reference link?
Twain.
“He split Robin’s arrow in twain!”
The last time I was with a woman it was actually twoo, it was quite magical, I tell ya.
Wait until you learn about words starting with a silent p, like pterodactyl and ptoilet.
ptoilet?
That’s gonna phuck with my sychology!
So, basically the owl from the tootsie roll commercials.
One…ah-ToWHO…three!
crunch
I’m going to just drop this here (be sure to watch to the end):
It is sometimes done in German. The word is Zwei, but it’s somewhat common to say Zwo instead for clarity. The w is pronounced.
I guess the" tw" sound isn’t used as frequently in English. It happens in between.
That’s going to morph into ‘dva’ hella fast as that ‘t’ is clunky to pronounce.
