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Here's a small historical inaccuracy hiding in plain sight: "w" is called "double-u" in English, but it actually descends from two joined "v"s, not two "u"s. French gets it right, calling the letter "double-v" instead — both names point to the same shared ancestry covered in earlier posts in this series, but only one nails the actual source.
"w" is also a genuinely late addition to the alphabet. Classical Latin never had a "w" sound, so the letter simply didn't exist in Roman writing. It emerged later, once Latin script was adapted to write Germanic languages like Old English, which needed a letter Latin's original set didn't include. Early scribes doubled up "V" to represent the sound, and that doubled form eventually fused into the single "W" glyph we use today.
Structurally, "w" is essentially "v" doubled — which makes it the widest lowercase letter in most typefaces, right alongside "m."
This glyph series breaks down every letter like this. ✍️ #TypeDesign #Typography #FontDesign
Read more: https://letterhanna.com/lowercase-letter-w-design-and-history/