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D (letter)
From Citizendium, the Citizens' Compendium
D, d is a letter of the Latin alphabet. It is the fourth letter of most variants of the Latin alphabet, being placed after C and before E: for instance it is the case 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
d is like t but voiced (compare dén and tén: the accents show stress and pronunciation: see English phonemes): 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', [dʒ], sound, although here it is really redundant, as the g is always 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.
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.
d begins consonant clusters: Édgbaston, adhêre, crâdle, admít, kídney, dréss, Édsel, advîse, ádze.
And flòod and blòod rhyme with múd (cf. moôd, òther).
