The ‘w’ is be-twain other letters in ‘two’ for a reason

Today’s question: Why is there a “w” in the word for the numeral 2 — two? Why shouldn’t there be? “W’ is a perfectly fine letter and has as much right to be there as any other letter. Actually, it’s because “two” is a descendant of “twain,’’ from the days when people spoke Old English and the word for two was “twegen.” It has a relative in old versions of German, Dutch and Danish.

Also that “w” helps us tell the difference between “to” and “too” so it is useful in that sense.

You don’t hear people use “twain” much these days, although it is found in the King James Version of the Bible, some marriage services and some poetry. It’s especially useful to poets because so many things rhyme with it.

And of course to sailors, twain means two fathoms deep and as we all know, it’s from where Samuel Clemens took his pen name, drawing on his steamship days on the Mississippi River.

(I know that Mark Twain bit is pretty much common knowledge that doesn’t have to be explained here, but if I don’t mention it, I’ll get a bunch of emails and voicemails tomorrow from people who thought I was too stupid to know it.)

Is it true that orange is the only word in the English language that doesn’t have a rhyme?

It kind of depends on where you’re from and what accent you carry. With some accents you probably could rhyme orange with hinge or arrange and who knows what.

As for words with no perfect — repeat — perfect rhyme, consider angel, prompt, elbow, liquid or penguin.