Well, what a w? Two "u"s, right?
So www is six "u"s, right.
What indicates six… sexta?
How about just saying “sex u”?
If somebody asked me to go to sexu.allnight.com, I’d probably consider it. It would at least make me smile or get my day off to a good start.
Wouldn’t you like to hear other folks say “sexu” several times a day?
Because then when I’m trying to explain to you that you need to go to web.mit.edu, you’re going to type www.mit.edu. A very similar situation happened to me once. I was trying to help someone download and install the free version of PGP, which is (was?) on web.mit.edu. This is all being done over the phone, mind you. I kept telling her to type “web.mit.edu” into her browser, and she kept telling me it was saying “server not found” or some such thing. I sent her to other web sites, which all worked. I finally gave up, figuring there was some weird routing issue at work or something, and I told her to go to another, fairly lengthy, address. Since it was a long and complicated URL, I started by saying, “www” and she replied, “yup, I already have that.” BING! That was it. She thought every address on the web started with www, so when I told her to go to “web.mit.edu” she was typing “www.web.mit.edu.” DUH! I had to explain to this woman that not all web addresses started with www. She had no idea.
For what it’s worth, if I absolutely need to say “double you double you double you,” I usually abbreviate it as “wuh-wuh-wuh” (my best written approximation of making three W consonant sounds).
I’ve sometimes said “triple w”
The reason is that it’s an extension of a scheme for naming servers that was quite common (still is, actually - it’s just less visible now). Back in the day, many sites had different machines (or at least different IP addresses) for the servers that handled various functions. The servers got named like this:
ftp.whatever.com
smtp.whatever.com (or mail.whatever.com)
gopher.whatever.com
wais.whatever.com (haven’t seen one of those in a while)
So, www.whatever.com was the obvious choice for a web server.
Yeah, a lot of people think that the Web is the Internet, but it’s really just the most visible part. I remember when the Web was text only, and mostly dealt with obscure science.
That’s probably why “www”-shorthands haven’t caught on, for fear of confusing the folks who think your shorthand is the real McCoy.
The Straight Dope is for fighting ignorance, not propagating it. 
You want the techie explanation? pestie already started the explanation, but since it’s been asked a couple of times here’s a bit more:
The URL (and so as not to completely hijack - do you say U.R.L, or earl? I say U.R.L), anyway, the URL www.straightdope.com is composed of three elements:
www = the name of the machine
straightdope = the name of the domain
com = the type of the domain
So “www” is just a machine name, as is “boards”, as is “www1”.
When you type in a URL or click on a link a bunch of stuff happens.
I’m all worn out from fighting ignorance. Can I go home now?
Proof that Rutabegger has tmtohh. (or does that acronym just prove the same about me?)
Aha, ** Rutabegger**, so that’s what all those progress bars and references to DNS servers and “sending request” and all that mean. I watch Opera and Explorer do that dozens of times a day and I always wonder what exactly they’re up to…
All this talk of the Net in 1993 makes me feel so yoooung!!
Like Rutabegger said…
When you type in a website as business.com instead of www.business.com, your browser is generally assuming that the prefix is www, and that’s typically the name of the machine the site is located on. There are still a few websites that you can’t omit the www on, though it isn’t really obvious until you try it and it doesn’t work. I run into them occassionally.
It’s similar to my full URL: http://www.jinwicked.com/index.html , where you can put jinwicked.com into the browser toolbar and go to the same page. The browser assumes the http://www., and my server loads index.html as the default page. This is all good because it’s easier to remember that way.
When I upload files to my server, I use ftp.jinwicked.com in my FTP program; when I’m downloading mail, it comes from mail.jinwicked.com.
As for why there’s no “word” for www, I assume it’s for the reason that someone else mentioned – it’s very seldom necessary anymore. I’ve heard triple-dub and dub-dub-dub, but I thought both of them sounded rather silly.
Nope. Your browser assumes the http:// (the data transfer protocol), but it’s the web server assuming the www. (machine name) and /index.html (file path and name) parts.
I always figured that there was no slang for the ‘www’ part, because we already have ‘Dot-com’ when we refer to web addresses.
Mark Schneider, the incredibly annoying host of CTV’s now-defunct Digital Desk, consistently pronounced www as “woo woo woo”. You have no idea how hard it was to resist throwing heavy objects at the television set whenever I heard that.
Whenever I need to say an address aloud, I usually say “doubleyous dot com.”
I say, “weinerschnitzel dot com.”
No, I don’t. I’m like every other normal person on the planet and just omit the “www” altogether.
One of these days, then, you’re going to give someone an incorrect address. The “www” part is not optional; if the system administrators at a certian domain xyz.com have redirected requests to http://example.com/ to http://www.example.com/, then they’re doing you a favour.
If you don’t believe me, try the following links:
http://www.rosi.toronto.edu/
http://rosi.toronto.edu/
Note that leaving off the “www.” doesn’t work for this particular site.
My Illuminati Overlords will remedy that situation soon enough!
Here’s the thing … a great majority of sites begin with “www”, especially mainstream, non-technical, grandmother-friendly type sites. So in general conversation, if I’m pointing somebody somewhere, I omit the “www”.
If it is an exception, I will note it.
It’s like saying, “I live over on Elm … Boulevard, not Street.”
Dig?
My mistake… thank you for the correction.
Best abbreviation that never caught on: “trip dub”. I heard this once, but only once.
If I say it, I say “Dubya, dubya”. But I try not to. I just say, “whatever dot com”.
Many sites DO still require the www, it slows me down all the time. Why would anyone NOT set up their server this way. Contrary to Psychonauts claim, they are doing themselves a favor to allow this, not me. Why should simplicity, speed, and usability not have priority over some stupid historically determined default setting in Apache?!? Come on, now.
Netscape used to fill in http, www, AND .com, after the user keying apple/L, type in just the meat. It will take you there. It worked for everything but www.news.com. Unfortunately I am no longer using Mac, or Netscape so current status of this shortcut unknown. Please post if you know of similar Win/IE shortcut!!
Pet peeve is people who still give addresses starting “http colon…” Give me a break please, what century did you just walk in from.