B, b [Called ‘bee’]. The 2nd
LETTER of the modern Roman
ALPHABET as used for English. It descends from the Phoenician symbol
bēth (‘house’), which was adopted by the Greeks as
beta, B, then by the Romans as
B.
Sound values
In English,
b normally represents the voiced bilabial stop, with
p as its voiceless equivalent:
bad/pad. Word-final
b is rare, occurring mainly in monosyllables (
hub,
rib,
scab), but occasionally in longer words (
superb,
disturb,
cherub).
Double B
(1) The doubling of
b occurs when monosyllables with a short vowel are followed by
-er,
-ed, and
-ing:
rob/robber/robbed/robbing (contrast the phonetically long vowel in
daub/dauber/daubed/daubing). (2) Many disyllables contain double
b after a stressed short vowel (
abbey,
rabbit,
ribbon,
rubber,
rubble), but many others do not (
cabin,
debit,
double,
habit,
robin).
Silent B
B is silent after syllable-final
m (
dumb,
numb,
tomb), including in some words of Germanic origin in which it was formerly pronounced (
climb,
comb,
dumb,
lamb,
womb) and in French-derived words with final
mb (
aplomb,
bomb,
jamb,
plumb,
succumb,
tomb). In a number of words, a silent
b has been added by analogy:
crumb,
limb,
numb,
thumb. In some of these, it was created by backformation from words of the type
crumble,
thimble (formerly without
b).
Crum began to be written with
b in the 16c, but occurs without it in Johnson's dictionary (1755) and in some 19c dictionaries. Derivatives from
mb-words mostly keep the silent
b, as in
climber,
lambing,
thumbing, but
b is pronounced in such non-derivative polysyllables as
cucumber,
encumber,
Humber,
slumber. There is no
b in
dummy, derived from
dumb, or
crummy, derived from
crumb, and although
b is not pronounced finally in
bomb, medial
b is pronounced in
bombard.
Epenthetic B
B is epenthetic in
debt,
doubt, and
subtle, which entered English from French as
dette,
doute, and
soutil. As in French, these words were given a
b in deference to their Latin etymons
debitum,
dubitum, and
subtilis. However, while French shed
b in
dette and
doute in the 18c and came to pronounce the
b in
subtil, English has kept a silent
b in all three.
EPENTHESIS also occurs after medial
m in some words: for example, Latin
camera and
numerus became French
chambre and
nombre, English
chamber and
number. Compare German
fummeln and
rummeln with English
fumble and
rumble.
