Vell done Sveden

The letter "W" has finally been added to the definitive dictionary of the Swedish language, in the latest edition compiled by the Swedish Academy, it said on its website.

Words spelled with the letter "W" are rare in Swedish, with the exception of words borrowed from other languages, such as "whisky", "wok", and the Internet "web."

"W" and "V" are also pronounced identically in Swedish, and therefore have often been considered interchangeable. As a result, words spelled with the rarer "W" have been listed under the "V" section of the dictionary, which incidentally is followed by the "X" section.

But in the new version of the Swedish Academy's dictionary, "W" now has a section all to itself.

"The 13th edition introduces something unusual: an additional letter. W ("double-v"), which will no longer be categorized under the single v but will instead be -- as in many other languages, including Nordic ones -- a letter in its own right, placed after the letter v," the Academy wrote on its website introducing the new dictionary.

The Swedish Academy's dictionary, first published in 1874, was last updated in 1998. It now contains 125,000 words in current use in the Swedish language.

Perhaps the distinction between "W" and "V" will help English-speaking Swedes remember that the only poisonous snake found in their country is not, actually, a "wiper"...