# "Roe v. Wade" vs. "Roe against Wade" **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [January 26, 2013, 1:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/roe-v-wade-vs-roe-against-wade/648393 "2013-01-26T01:57:52Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 1\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [January 28, 2013, 9:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/roe-v-wade-vs-roe-against-wade/648393/41 "2013-01-28T21:12:56Z")
> [@Zakalwe](#): > > Okay, this makes much more sense to me. It’s not that “v.” is pronounced “against”, it’s that “against” is _printed_ “v”. Interesting. > [@CurtC](#): > > Not really - it’s usually printed as “Roe v. Wade,” sometimes as “Roe vs. Wade.” The question is how to say this when speaking. Some people say “vee,” some people say “versus,” but neither the OP nor I had ever heard anyone say “against” until that NPR interview. Yes, but Zakalwe’s formulation answers the question accurately. Abbreviations of Latin phrases started out as scribes’ shorthand, and later as a way for printers to save space. So, the concept of “for example” was printed as “e.g.,” but it was not meant to be a representation of the phrase “EE JEE,” because “EE JEE” doesn’t mean anything in English. So when seeing “e.g.,” scholars would read it aloud as “for example.” It’s the same situation with “v.” in legal use. It was a shorthand way of writing “against.” Slowly over time, reading it out as “vee” or “versus” has become more common, especially among laypersons. If you ever spend time with legal experts in their own element, you’ll become quite familiar with the “against” reading, although, even there, as I said before, it is less popular than “vee” or “versus.” But I have heard lawyers, legal scholars, jurists, and even Supreme Court justices switch back and forth among “vee,” “versus,” and “against.” They’re all considered equally correct and although any one person might favor one over the others, no one really cares which one you use. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/roe-v-wade-vs-roe-against-wade/648393.md?page=2)