Use
In English, most other languages that use the Latin alphabet, and the International Phonetic Alphabet, ⟨b⟩ denotes the voiced bilabial plosive /b/, as in bib. In English it is sometimes silent; most instances are derived from old monosyllablic words with the b final and immediately preceded by an m, such as lamb and bomb; a few are examples of etymological spelling to make the word more like its Latin original, such as debt or doubt.
In Estonian, Icelandic, and Chinese pinyin, ⟨b⟩ does not denote a voiced consonant; instead, it represents a voiceless /p/ that contrasts with either a geminated /pp/ (in Estonian) or an aspirated /pʰ/ (in Chinese, Danish and Icelandic), represented by ⟨p⟩. In Fijian ⟨b⟩ represents a prenasalized /mb/, whereas in Zulu and Xhosa it represents an implosive /ɓ/, in contrast to the digraph ⟨bh⟩ which represents /b/.
Finnish only uses ⟨b⟩ in loanwords.
⟨B⟩ is also a musical note. Its value varies depending on the region; a ⟨b⟩ in Anglophone countries represents a note that is a semitone higher than the B note in Northern Continental Europe. (Anglophone B is represented in Northern Europe with ⟨H⟩.) Archaic forms of ⟨b⟩, the b quadratum (square b, ♮) and b rotundum (round b, ♭) remain in use for musical notation as the symbols for natural and flat, respectively.
In Contracted (grade 2) English braille, ⟨b⟩ stands for "but" when in isolation.
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Famous quotes containing the word use:
“... it is use, and use alone, which leads one of us, tolerably trained to recognize any criterion of grace or any sense of the fitness of things, to tolerate ... the styles of dress to which we are more or less conforming every day of our lives. Fifty years hence they will seem to us as uncultivated as the nose-rings of the Hottentot seem today.”
—Elizabeth Stuart Phelps (1844–1911)