[cardiffspaceman]

Some Americans have pronounced it "Voltswagen", not sure why.

I wonder if it would be less confusing to Germans if we used "Fow Vay" to pronounce the abbreviation. Instead of "Vee Double-You." I'm not being sarcastic, but I don't think a change to the correct pronunciation is likely.

[minxomat]

Double-You is just ridiculous in the first place. I cringe a bit every time I have to say "AWS", but that's just because it's much smoother in German.

[sudosteph]

Do you actually pronounce it like "double-you" (with 3 syllables) in that context?

I'm a native speaker from the US South, and hadn't realized this until I read your comment. For me, the "W" always gets shortened to "dub-you" in AWS (or "dubya" if I'm not being picky about it). Standalone, I might pronounce "W" more like "dub-a-you if I'm emphasizing it, but not usually.

Anyhow, thanks for pointing this out. I will also now forever think that "double-you" is ridiculous.

[wizzard]

I’m a native speaker from the north and west US and it’s definitely “double-u”. A double-u S. In my experience only Southerners shorten it the way you describe.

[sudosteph]

No kidding! Do you even pronounce the "l" sound in "double" (and if so, dub-el or dub-ull or something else)?

It's always fascinating to be reminded that I'm still basically ear-blind to certain linguistic patterns (the "pen/pin" merger being one I still can't even hear as different, let alone say). For a long time, I falsely assumed that because I grew up watching the same TV shows as the rest of the country, and because I didn't speak with the same accent as my family members, that I didn't have an accent at all. Turns out I do - I just can't hear it.

[wizzard]

Everyone I’ve been around says “dub-ull”. I moved from Michigan to Utah as an adult and pen/pin can be very close here, which I find annoying because I don’t want my kids to pick up the Utah accent... but of course they have.

I took Linguistics in college and my professor could tell where people were from in the US within a couple hundred miles by their accent. Anyone who thinks they don’t have an accent absolutely does. Except maybe Nebraskans — I read somewhere that they have the most neutral, “correct” American accent, though I don’t think it was a scientific source.

[jessaustin]

"AWS" ends up being more like "ay-dub-yes", doesn't it?

[sudosteph]

Nearly, but unless I'm speaking with family members / other people with thick southern accent, I try to keep the "u" sound present - though it's more like the French "u" than the "you" sound. So typically it sounds like 'ay-dub-yuez", with a short pause between the "yu" and "ez". It's the sound that would be in between "Suez" (like the canal) and "swez". Replacing the "yu" sound with the "ya", does indeed end up sounding like slightly elongated "yes".