D

Perhaps because it is reputed that stupid people are prone to saying, "Duh," but more likely because of the letter grade, the letter D comes with a deceptive reputation as an underachiever. (Note also Tweedledum and Tweedledee.) The letter grade, in fact, deserves a moment all to itself. Think about this: a D. "I got a D." What does this mean? It is a particularly cruel way of failing without technically failing, more on the order of a humiliation, incidentally saying more about the system that designed the grade (duh). But it's also due to the way the letter D stands for things like down, don't, dirty, disgusting, depraved, denigrated, deranged, and degenerate. Well, somebody has to! It appears to be a self-esteem problem of some kind, always tending back again toward that familiar semblance of underachievement. Look, for example, at how it insinuates itself into the word "mediocre," virtually enlisting one to allocute one's own failings Bizarro style simply by pronouncing it. Can you hear what the letter D and its dumb baggage is making you say? "Me D." That's what you're really saying. "It was mediocre. Mediocre. Me D." Hey, me feel same way, Bizarro. Me am also D. (Also applies with even more ominous implications to "medieval.") This raises a question. What were the Greek alphabet makers thinking when they put D fourth in line? Is it something about the mouth noise, voiced brother to the plosive T? And if so, what? As we have seen already with A, B, and C, it isn't frequency of use that's winning this contest. The letter D ranks only #10 on that scale. And doesn't that also, in the end, actually make the letter D an overachiever? You see where I am going. Well, it does make a bit of a silly, pot-bellied figure, doesn't it? All military posture on the left and then the flab on the right (or vice versa, approximately, face right, with the lowercase d). The letter D also belongs to the large family of letters that rhyme with E, their spiritual progenitor as it were: B, C, D, E, G, P, T, V, and Z. Represent! (I understand those with stronger ties to the British mother tongue are wont to say "zed" for Z, but that is a topic for another time, duh.) Another question: Does anyone like the letter D? Why? It seems unassuming to the point of bland neglect, indubitably inscrutable. Yet somehow paradoxically it always manages to overachieve again. Consider: The strongest fingers on our hands are, as everybody knows (after the thumbs, duh), the middle fingers. And look who's sitting there under your left-hand middle finger with pride of place, waiting to take the punishment. None other than ... well, duh. Man, sometimes I think the letter D just sits there and waits to get everything handed to it on a platter. It's the spoiled, practically worthless brat of the alphabet. Why, I oughtta. But wait a second now. It's also an honest letter, doing an honest day's work, with a single unique sound that no other letter uses. What's more, it's widely common among many, many languages, if not all of them. Somebody stop me from actually typing, "So cred