D (letter)

From Citizendium
Revision as of 10:11, 29 October 2012 by imported>Ro Thorpe (can be schwa)
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This article is developing and not approved.
Main Article
Discussion
Related Articles  [?]
Bibliography  [?]
External Links  [?]
Citable Version  [?]
 
This editable Main Article is under development and subject to a disclaimer.

D, d is a letter of the Latin alphabet. It is the fourth letter of most variants, being placed after C and before E, as is the case for instance in the English alphabet. Its English name is pronounced [ˈdiː], like that of the River Dee.

D is also the Roman numeral representing the number 500.

Use in English

A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z
Use in English
Alphabetical word list
Retroalphabetical list  
Common misspellings  

d is like t but voiced (compare dén and tén; the accents show stress and pronunciation: see English spellings): the tongue touches the upper teeth: dóg, héad, dím, blòod, woòden, dàrling, dâinty, mádder, dûe, dāft, admîre, nâdir, hëard, bïrd, wörd, sád, bád, mád, gód, cód, said (*séd).

In the past forms of verbs d sounds like t if the preceding consonant is also unvoiced: loòked (*loòkt), híssed (*híst) - except in the case of t, after which it is necessary to sound the e as í: ẁanted (*wóntíd).

d is often found before g to make it clear that the g will have the soft j sound, although here it is really redundant, as the g is usually followed by a front vowel, e, i or y: bádge, lédge, bádger, lédger, rídge, brídge, dódge, dódgy, púdgy, édge, édgy, lódger, lódging, Hódges, cúdgel, wédge. But in júdgement and acknówledgement the e is optionally omitted after dg, without changing the pronunciation: júdgment, acknówledgment. And in Édgar, the d and (hard) g are clearly separate sounds, *Éd-gə(r).

d is often doubled, to emphasise the preceding short vowel: míddle, sádder, ádd, múddle, gíddy, ódd, pádding, wédded. There can be an accidental sustained double d in gránddad – or it can be simply grándad.

In eistéddfod, the double d is pronounced as dh (-dhvod).

d begins consonant clusters: Édgbaston, adhêre, crâdle, admít, kídney, dréss, Édsel, advîse, ádze.

And flòod and blòod rhyme with múd (cf. moôd, broôd, foôd; hoòd, woòd, goòd).

Scientific uses

D is the symbol for the isotope deuterium.