F (letter)

From Citizendium
Revision as of 09:49, 29 October 2012 by imported>Ro Thorpe
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.

F, f is a letter of the Latin alphabet. It is the sixth letter of most variants, being placed after E and before G, as is the case for instance in the English alphabet. Its English name is pronounced [ˈef], that is eff.

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  

f is a labiodental fricative, air being pushed through the upper teeth and lower lip. It is an unvoiced v: feŵ and vieŵ are a minimal pair.

Further examples: (the accents show stress and pronunciation: see English spellings): fún, féather, férry, fîght, forty, fífty, fílth, fíckle, fád, flóp, frét, físt, óff, óften (*offen), fát, fïrst, déaf, friénd.

It is often doubled at the end of words, after a single vowel letter: óff, stúff, clíff, whíff, múff, though not always: íf, óf (*ov), déaf (two vowel letters). And also in the middle of words: ráffle, óffer, íffy, báffle, éffort, Clífford, múffle, stúffing, stúffed.

f begins consonant clusters: Áfghan, aflôat, frîght, shíft.

The f sound, however, is spelt ph in many words from Greek: epíphany, Dáphne, grāph, élephant; however, Stêphen is pronounced exactly like its variant spelling Stêven.

In some words the f sound is written gh: enoúgh, tróugh, cóugh.

In óf and Welsh words such as eistéddfod (-édhvód) and Aberfán, f is pronounced as v.

Scientific uses

  • F: farad, the unit of electric capacitance
  • F: force
  • f: generic function