Talk:U

January 2004
Can someone paraphrase this sentence for me:"U was originally a capital letter like J and it was only Pierre de la Ramée who made the distinction between capital and small letter."? I can't get it. Thanks! --Samuel 05:00, 7 Jan 2004 (UTC)~


 * I think it was the other way (see V). u was a variant of V in Medioeval Latin. Somebody (Ramus?) decided that the sounds had diverged too much and used one of the forms for the vowel and another for the consonant. Since by then, uppercase and lowercase were already used in the same text, as opposed to earlier one-case texts, somebody invented an uppercase U and a lowercase v. The same happened to I and J, initially differente styles for the same latte


 * [|this version of this page is the oldest page on Wikipedia known to exist.

Simple question: what about &lt;u&gt; tags? --Ihope127 00:10, 12 August 2005 (UTC)

Modern times?
The article says that "the use of the two forms to distinguish consonants and vowels was not made until modern times." Having read a fair amount of Middle English, it seems to me that there were often spelling conventions along these lines (often counter to that which we have today, that is v=u, and u=v). I am therefore changing the sentence to the following: "The use of the two forms to distinguish the consonants and vowels which they now represent was not standardised until modern times."

Rdr0 00:05, 1 January 2006 (UTC)

How did I get here?
How did I get here? I clicked on a link for information about the U.S. 19the Air Base Squadron and wound up in a definition of the letter "U"?

Organization of the 20th Air Base Group
 * U.S. 27th Material Squadron
 * U.S. 28th Material Squadron
 * U.S. 19th Air Base Squadron  <<=== Clicked on this.


 * I'd guess someone made a mistake and linked only the "U" in "U.S. 19th Air Base Squadron" — Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.40.208.208 (talk) 18:22, 14 October 2013 (UTC)

Internet Slang
Why do we have to include 'U' being used in internet slang? On the 'R' article, there's nothing about 'are' and on the 'Y' article, there's nothing about 'why'. sdfikwildkfowj asb odkflorpqis vkdktpoalsxozvei — Preceding unsigned comment added by 211.43.130.25 (talk) 01:25, 4 December 2014 (UTC)

Request for more information
A U is also a measure of height for rack mounted servers. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.3.182.222 (talk) 06:55, 13 September 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia trivia
According to The Wikipedia Revolution, this article was the first article created on Wikipedia, done by Larry Sanger in January 2001. The history tab doesn't go back that far so there must have been some lost data when they upgraded to a new software platform. Green Cardamom (talk) 03:26, 23 March 2009 (UTC)


 * The history tab shows the first entry on May 21, 2001. Wikipedia Revolution, P 64, claims Wikipedia was launched 1/15/2001 and that this was the first article. The book, by Andrew Lih, doesn't expressly credit Sanger with creating this article.  But without at least one article, there is no encyclopedia--so some historical data must indeed have been lost.Barte (talk) 18:15, 14 March 2012 (UTC)

U and V in English (modern) and Latin, also New Latin
Here: for example, is a good explanation of the waz U and V have been transversed in English, but not a particularly good one. That is to say, that it misses the point. The point I shall say here I have no founding to, seems to me obvious, but everyone seems to miss the point and I have no references for it, which is why I ask here.

If you are chiselling out a stone and write let's say "Uterus", it is MUCH easier to strike two downs \/ than do the curve around the bottom of the U. So I think stone chisellers would tend to put a U into a V just because that is how it is easier to strike it. Later in typography the same, to cast a letter U is a bugger cos the hot lead will tend to fill the gap in the U to make it some big blot, whereas it will not with the V, where the lead will run off at the bottom apex.

So I don't think it is particularly stylistic, just practical. I will have a hard time to prove it, but that is why I ask. Si Trew (talk) 09:22, 23 July 2011 (UTC)


 * Perhaps I should say, with clean hands, occasionally I translate old Latin headstones in England, and the stonemasons were probably illiterate, so although they could take a chip off the old block they didn't know what they were writing. There are lots of illiterate spellings on old headstones, one of the joys of it is to work out who thez actually were. Si Trew (talk) 09:28, 23 July 2011 (UTC)


 * I'd expect a sharp corner to be more of a trap than a round bowl; compare ink trap. —Tamfang (talk) 21:32, 1 August 2011 (UTC)

Exceptional pronunciations of U
The article somehow fails to mention the exceptional pronunciation of U in such word as Burial, maybe there are more cases. Can somebody shed a light on that? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 109.86.157.1 (talk) 01:58, 2 March 2014 (UTC)

Voice of the letter U
Bob Peterson does provided the voice for the letter U (in a squeaky voice) in Disney's thirty-fifth animated motion picture Hercules. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.147.198.171 (talk) 20:42, 17 March 2014 (UTC)

Use in English
Also pronounce as 'e' like in "bury" הנדב הנכון (talk) 16:20, 23 January 2015 (UTC)
 * No, "bury" doesn't sound like "berry". --94.217.99.209 (talk) 10:34, 10 September 2017 (UTC)
 * Of course it does! They're perfect homophones. Kbb2 (ex. Mr KEBAB) (talk) 22:58, 27 June 2018 (UTC)
 * … in some dialects. —Tamfang (talk) 21:12, 11 August 2019 (UTC)

WGST215 question
Hi Adam - I also asked this question to both Helaine and Ian (Helaine told me to ask either you or Ian and I have yet to hear from him); I have a question regarding my sandbox.. I am writing an article for Lilian Welsh, but I wrote two stubs (in a word document) that link to her page; I am wondering where I should put these stubs, in my sandbox with the article I wrote or is there a separate spot for them to go? Thanks.

RingoMad67 (talk) 15:24, 6 December 2016 (UTC)

/u/ use in English
/u/ is used in English for words such as "bull" — Preceding unsigned comment added by 61.69.206.32 (talk) 11:19, 25 June 2021 (UTC)