I

I, i [Called ‘eye’]. The 9th LETTER of the Roman ALPHABET as used for English. It originated in the Phoenician symbol yod (representing the sound of y in yes) which was adapted in GREEK to a vertical line for the vowel called iota. This was adopted by the Romans as I with both long and short LATIN vowel values, and also for the consonant value of y. In medieval times, a superscript dot was added to distinguish minuscule i in manuscript from adjacent vertical strokes in such letters as u, m, n. The variant form j emerged at this time and subsequently became a separate letter.

Sound values

It is difficult to fix a precise primary value for i in English. There is free variation between different values of i in the first syllable of words such as digest, finance, minority, tribunal. Elsewhere, there is a regular shift between related words: child/children, five/fifth, crime/criminal, finish/final(ity), social/society, admire/admirable. Variation in sound is overlaid by two uncertainties in SPELLING: except word-initially, both i and y can represent the same sound, even as alternatives: gipsy/gypsy, siphon/syphon, laniard/lanyard, drier/dryer. Many spellings are available for the one sound in the final syllables of souvenir, Kashmir (contrast cashmere), cavalier, weir, musketeer, sincere, appear. The result is a varied distribution of values, as follows:

Short I

(1) In most monosyllabic words before pronounced word-final consonants: ill, in, is; bid, big, bit; which, sing, dish, with; fifth, milk, kiln, film, filth, wind (noun), link, hint, plinth, lisp, list. However, long i occurs in this position in pint, ninth and child, mild, wild (but not build, gild, guild) and in bind, find, kind, wind (verb), etc. Short i occurs in give, to live, but long i in dive, five, alive. Similarly, short i occurs in river, liver, but long i in diver, fiver. (2) In most polysyllables before a doubled consonant (bitter, bitty, cirrus, irrigate, immigrant) and commonly before single consonants (city, finish, spirit, river, consider, imitate, iridescent, limit, litigation, magnificent, ridiculous). (3) Occasionally before a consonant and word-final e (give, live, active, heroine, imagine, definite), although i is normally long in this environment. (4) The sound of short i is often spelt with y, especially to represent the Greek letter upsilon, as in myth, symbol. Other vowel letters may also have this value: e in pretty and Greek-derived words such as acme, catastrophe; o in the plural women; u in busy, business. Certain unstressed vowels vary in pronunciation between short i and other values, especially schwa: a as in furnace, cottage, e as in began, despair, hated, college, u as in lettuce, minute (noun). (5) In RP, a modified short i occurs before single r, when ir is not directly followed by another vowel: sir, stir, bird, girl, squirm, first, birth, circle, virtue. The same modification occurs with the short values of e, u, y, producing the homophones birth/berth, fir/fur. (6) The letter i does not occur word-finally in traditional English spelling, its sound being represented by y, but such a short i or a lengthened variant (depending partly on accent) is found in some recent formations and loans: taxi, safari, spaghetti. A length distinction between this value and short i may be heard in taxiing, a distinction some speakers also make between the two vowels of city.

Long I

(1) Monosyllables and disyllables before one or sometimes two consonants preceding word-final e: ice, tribe, wife, like, pile, time, fine, ripe, mire, kite, strive, size; idle, rifle, isle, title, mitre. (2) In disyllabic verbs ending in a stressed Latin root, whose corresponding nouns often have short i: ascribe/ascription, collide/collision, decide/decision, invite/invitation, provide/provision, reside/residence. (3) In monosyllables before: -gh (high, sigh, fight, plight, height, sleight), but not otherwise after e: (weigh, sleigh, eight, freight; -ld (child, mild, wild, but not build, g(u)ild); -nd (bind, blind, find, grind, hind, kind, rind, wind (verb)); and in a single case each -nt (pint), -nth (ninth), and -st (Christ). Note also whilst. In monosyllabic and disyllabic roots, a following silent consonant sometimes signals the long value: -g (align, benign, consign), -b (climb), -c (indict), -s (island, viscount). (4) In many polysyllables with initial stressed syllables: library, iron, island, item, final, libel, license, private, ivy, tidy (but contrast privy, city). (5) The long value is not always stable: sometimes it remains in derivatives while losing stress (final/finality, irony/ironic, library/librarian, virus/virology), elsewhere becoming short while stress is retained (arthritis/arthritic, bronchitis/bronchitic, BrE private/privacy). (6) In initial stressed syllables directly followed by another vowel: client, dial, diamond, diet, friar, ion, science, triangle, triumph. The long i is kept when the stress shifts in derivatives: science/scientific, triangle/triangular, triumph/triumphant. (7) In some unstressed suffixes of Latin origin, such as -ide (cyanide, sodium chloride) and -ite (Israelite, finite, but optionally short in plebiscite). In other suffixes, usage varies. Long i occurs in -ile in BrE but generally not in AmE, which has a schwa or a syllabic consonant: fertile, hostile, missile, volatile. Long i occurs in such animal-related adjectives as aquiline, bovine, equine, but short i commonly in such general adjectives as feminine, genuine, masculine (although long i can also occur, especially in ScoE). Latin endings in i usually have long value (alibi, fungi, termini) as do Greek letter names (pi, phi, psi, chi/khi). (8) A unique spelling is choir, changed from quire to reflect its derivation from chorus.

Continental I

This is the ‘ee’ value of MIDDLE ENGLISH i before the Great Vowel Shift. It is found in recent loans from the ROMANCE LANGUAGES (pizza, police, fatigue, routine, souvenir, mosquito) and elsewhere (bikini, kiwi, ski). JAPANESE Romaji spellings also accord i this value: Hirohito, Mitsubishi. In final position in FRENCH loans, the i may be followed by a silent letter: debris, esprit. The spelling of this vowel sound in earlier French loans has been Anglicized as ea and ee: league, esteem, canteen. This value also occurs in native English words and older loans with the medial digraph ie: field, fiend, frieze, grief, mien, piece, priest, shriek, siege. A following r modifies this value in RP, but otherwise bier, pierce, cashier belong in this category. Occasionally the ee value of the ie may be shortened in speech to short i: mischief. The ie in sieve always has short value, and the e value in friend is exceptional.

Unstressed I

In unstressed position, i is commonly reduced to schwa, though in some accents, notably RP, tending towards its short value: sordid, plaintiff, porridge, vestige, nostril, denim, raisin, tapir, premiss, limit, satirist, admiral, admiration.

Silent I

(1) In the second written syllable of business and, for some people, in medicine. (2) Before another vowel in the unstressed syllables of cushion, fashion, parishioner, and commonly in parliament.

Variations

(1) The letters i, y were interchangeable in MIDDLE ENGLISH and remain so in several pairs of alternatives: short value (gipsy/gypsy, lichgate/lychgate, pigmy/pygmy, sillabub/syllabub, silvan/sylvan), long value (cider/cyder, cipher/cypher, dike/dyke, siphon/syphon); contrasting ie and y (bogie/bog(e)y, cadie/caddy, pixie/pixy). BrE tyre contrasts with AmE tire. However, these alternatives are distinct from such homophones as calix/calyx, chili/chilly, die/dye. (2) There is standard variation between y and i when a suffix is added to a word that ends in y: happy, happier, happiest, happily, happiness; pity, pitying, pities, pitied, pitiable, pitiful. However, busy keeps y in busyness, to distinguish it from business. Sometimes there are alternative forms (drier/dryer), or there is no i form (slyness only), or no y form (gaily, daily). The verbs lay, pay, say change y to i in their past tense only: laid, paid, said. The verbs try, deny, adopt i in trial, denial. (3) The digraph ie has the value of long i in open monosyllables: die, lie, tie. Nouns and verbs whose base form ends in y with the value of long i inflect with ie when followed by s and d: try/tries, simplify/simplified. (4) I replaces e when suffixes are added to base words ending in -ce: face/facial, finance/financial, space/spacious (but note spatial). For alternative spellings such as despatch/dispatch, enquire/inquire see under E. (5) Some Latin singulars ending in -us substitute -i in the plural (fungus/fungi, radius/radii, terminus/termini). This is sometimes optional (cactuses, cacti) and may include controversial usages such as syllabuses, syllabi (there being no justification in Greek or Latin for the form syllabi). Some Latin singulars ending in -is may change to plural -es: axis/axes, basis/bases, oasis/oases.

Other functions

(1) A following i may soften (that is, palatalize) the letters c and g: electric/electricity, rigour/rigid. (2) When a vowel letter follows, i may soften a preceding consonant, but lose its own sound value: for example, c sounding like sh in racial, electrician, conscience, suspicion, conscious. Similar palatalization occurs with d (soldier), s (vision), ss (mission), t (nation). (3) In a similar position, i is silent after (soft) g: contagion, contagious, region, religion. (4) In the system of English personal pronouns, the capitalized letter I, spoken with a long value, represents the first person singular. To represent distinctive pronunciations, however, such as in Scots and Southern AmE, the form changes to Ah. See HARD AND SOFT, J.

ICON

1. A picture or image, especially a saint painted on a wooden panel and venerated in Orthodox Christianity. If something is iconic, it represents something else in a conventionalized way, as with features on a map (roads, bridges, etc.) or onomatopoeic words (as for example the words kersplat and kapow in US comic books, standing for the impact of a fall and a blow). 2. An archetypal image: ‘It is hopeless to retreat from the problem of racism to [Margaret] Mitchell's personal and Scarlett's fictional struggles against the role of the “icon” the “Southern Lady”, a figure utterly entangled with the practice of slavery’ (Patricia Storace, The New York Review of Books, 19 Dec. 1991). 3. A person regarded as embodying a certain quality, style, or attitude: ‘When Spike Lee, America's hottest black film director, decided to make a film about Malcolm X, the country's most controversial black icon, Hollywood sensed a blockbuster’ ( John Cassidy, The Sunday Times, 11 Aug. 1991). 4. A stylized symbol, especially in COMPUTING: a small image on a screen representing a function or an option, such as a paintbrush (representing and permitting a painting-like activity on screen) or a wastebasket (representing and permitting the erasure of materia). Commonly, a program is started, a file obtained, etc., by pointing an arrow-like cursor at one icon in a menu-like group, generally using a hand-held mouse to move the cursor and activate the icon. Compare EMOTICON.