Also what's up with the double v's
this post was submitted on 21 Jan 2026
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Historically (prior to the 18th century), V and U weren’t considered separate letters—they were variants of the same letter. In lower-case text, v was the initial, and u was medial ; thus, what we would now spell as “ upon,” they would have written “ vpon,” and what we would now spell as “ have,” they would have written “ haue.” This is also why the letter w is called “ double-u ” in English. In upper-case text, however, V was generally used regardless of position, which gives us RETVRN. The Romans did write like this as well, and that’s specifically what the meme is emulating, rather than a more general historical trend. The reason it’s all in upper-case writing is because many Roman inscriptions were written before lower-case letters were invented.