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O
*** Shopping-Tip: O
{{Otheruses4|a letter|the
Damien Rice album|O (album)}}
{{AZ|uc=O|lc=o}}'''O''' is the fifteenth letter of the Latin
alphabet. Its name in
English language English is ''o'', plural ''o's'' or ''oes''.
History
{| border="1" cellpadding="5" cellspacing="0" style="border-collapse: collapse;text-align:center;"
|- bgcolor="#EEEEEE"
! Egyptian hieroglyph ''`ir''
! Proto-Semitic O
! Phoenician O
! Etruscan O
! Greek Omicron
|-----
|
D4
|
Image:Proto-semiticO-01.png
|
Image:PhoenicianO-01.png
|
Image:EtruscanO-01.png
|
Image:GreekOmikron-01.png
|}
The letter was derived from the Semitic 'Ayin (eye) which represented a consonant, probably the
pharyngeal consonant (
International Phonetic Alphabet IPA {{IPA|ʕ}}) pronounced similar to the
Arabic alphabet Arabic letter ع called 'Ayn'. This Semitic letter in its original form seems to have been inspired by a similar Egyptian hieroglyph for "eye".
The Greeks are thought to have come up with the innovation of vowels, and lacking a pharyngeal consonant, employed this letter as the
Greek alphabet Greek (
Omicron O) to represent the vowel /o/, a sound it maintained in
Etruscan language Etruscan and
Latin. In Greek, a variation of the form later came to distinguish this long sound (
Omega, meaning "large O") from the short o (Omicron, meaning "small o").
Its graphic form has also remained fairly constant from Phoenician times until today. Indeed, even alphabets constructed "from scratch", ie not derived from Semitic, usually have similar forms to represent this sound -- for example the creators of the
Afaka script Afaka and
Ol Chiki scripts, each invented in different parts of the world in the last century, both attributed their vowels for 'O' to the shape of the mouth when making this sound.
Category:Vowels
Usage
O is most commonly associated with the
close-mid back rounded vowel {{IPA|oʊ}}. In
English language English, though, O has a short value which maps to
Open back rounded vowel {{IPA|ɒ}} (
Open back unrounded vowel {{IPA|ɑ}} in parts of North America), while the long value tends to a
diphthong of
Close-mid back rounded vowel {{IPA|/o/}} and
Near-close near-back rounded vowel {{IPA|ʊ}}. Common digraphs include OO (inconsistently with the sound
Near-close near-back rounded vowel {{IPA|ʊ}} or
Close back rounded vowel {{IPA|/u/}}), OI (usually a diphthong of
Open-mid back rounded vowel {{IPA|ɔ}} and
Close front unrounded vowel {{IPA|ɪ}}), as well as OA, OE, and OU with a variety of pronunciations depending on context.
Other languages use O for various values, usually back vowels which are at least partly open. Derived letters such as
Ö and
Ø have been created by some languages to distinguish values that were not present in Latin and Greek, particularly rounded front vowels.
In the
International Phonetic Alphabet, [o] represents the
close-mid back rounded vowel.
Codes for computing
{{Letter
|NATO=Oscar
|Morse=–––
|B1=â—?
|B2=â—‹
|B3=â—?
|B4=â—‹
|B5=â—?
|B6=â—‹
}}
In
Unicode the
majuscule capital O is codepoint U+004F and the
minuscule lowercase o is U+006F.
The
ASCII code for capital O is 79 and for lowercase o is 111; or in
Binary numeral system binary 01001111 and 01101111, correspondingly.
The
EBCDIC code for capital O is 214 and for lowercase o is 150.
The
numeric character references in
HTML and
XML are "
O" and "
o" for upper and lower case respectively.
Distinguishing O from zero
:''See
0 (number)#Distinguishing_zero_from_O 0: Distinguishing zero from O''
Meanings for O
*'''O''' is a word in
English language English, used as an interjection to indicate the
vocative case, as in "O ye of little faith!"
* In
astronomy,
** O stands for a July 16 through 31 discovery, in the provisional designation of a comet (e.g.
C/1995 O1, Comet Hale-Bopp) or asteroid (e.g.
(4878) 1968 OF).
*In
chemistry, '''O''' stands for
oxygen.
*In
economics, O is usually used to represent
output.
*In
mathematics, the
orthogonal groups are designated by it.
*In
medicine, '''O''' (also, '''O+''' or '''O-''') is one of the human
blood types.
*In
Microsoft Windows, Ctrl-O, and
Mac OS, Command-O, opens a file.
*In
Normandy, '''O''' is a well-known and picturesque château. See
Château d'O.
*'''O''' is a symbol for a
hug, as in love notes. (See
Hugs and Kisses.)
*'''''O''''' is the nickname of a magazine founded by
Oprah Winfrey, more formally called ''
O, The Oprah Magazine''.
*'''''O''''' may refer to the 2002 album by
Damien Rice, see
O (album).
*'''O''' is a
black metal music band, see
O (band).
*'''O''' is the third person singular pronoun for all he, she, it in
Turkish language Turkish.
*'''''O''''' is a
film, see
O (film).
*'''Ō''' is a family name in
Japanese name Japanese; see
O (name).
*'''O''' is a
Chinese family name, represented by 柯; see
O (name).
*''
Story of O'' is a
French language French erotic novel.
*'''''
O (Cirque du Soleil) O''''' is the name of a
production show by
Cirque du Soleil at the
Bellagio (Hotel and Casino) Bellagio in
Las Vegas, Nevada Las Vegas.
*
Big O notation is, in
mathematics and
computer science, used to describe the
asymptotic behavior of a
subroutine function or
algorithm.
*'''o''' for ''ordentlich'' in German, meaning "of order". This was a title given to Austrian university professors of tenure status that are also research heads in their department. It was abolished in
1997, however, those who received it prior to its abandonment are allowed to continue using it. The "o" is placed before the rest of the professor's title.
*'''"O"''' was a minor character in the ''
Transformers (comic) Transformers'' comics.
See also
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Category:Latin_letters
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Image:Symbol oppose vote.png 15px '''Oppose'''
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