Just as the title, what is the W in Ｗワーク?
There is also those U-turn I-turn.....etc
Could you elaborate why is it just a single leter and what is the meaning of it?
1 Answer
W is pronounced ダブルユー (EDIT: or actually probably more commonly as ダブリュー or even only just ダブル as pointed out by Nanigashi in the comments below), based on the English alphabetic name of the same letter.
Over time the association between the romaji "W" and the ダブル part of ダブルユー/ダブリュー has lead to a custom where any context involving the word double/ダブル can be compactly abbreviated in text form as "W". Often seen in advertising too:
Wバーガー and such.
As you've probably guessed by now, Wワーク（ダブルワーク）simply refers to having two jobs at once.
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1Hmm. I'm a non-native speaker and haven't been in Japan for years, but when I was living there I don't think I ever heard anyone pronounce the name of the letter W as ダブルユー. (And as an English teacher, I did hear people say the names of Roman letters aloud with some regularity.) I did sometimes hear ダブリュー, which my dictionary tells me is the correct pronunciation. More often, though, people (mis)pronounced it as ダブル. I strongly suspect the use of W as a stand-in for ダブル originated among people who believed this very common (mis)pronunciation to be correct. May 25 at 22:31
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@Nanigashi Good point about the ダブリュー pronunciation. Updated the answer. Apparently my ears never really noticed that most people weren't saying ダブルユー. I don't think that changes the rest of the answer though. Even if some people just say ダブル, that doesn't change the etymological aspect regarding the first half of the word originating from English (and other European languages) where one would say "double u".– WillMay 26 at 3:20