I don't know if the rumor is true, but even if Windows itself doesn't provide an API that looks like that (I also looked around real quick and didn't find anything), it's not unreasonable that there could be libraries that provide the version that way.
The rumour is not true, despite reddit's insistence. Windows exposes it's version is a series of numbers, and even if it didn't, Windows 9 could have returned "Windows Nine", "Window v9" or loads of other things.
