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G

Latin alphabet
	Aa	Bb	Cc	Dd
Ee	Ff	Gg	Hh	Ii	Jj
Kk	Ll	Mm	Nn	Oo	Pp
Qq	Rr	Ss	Tt	Uu	Vv
	Ww	Xx	Yy	Zz

G is the seventh letter in the Roman alphabet.

History

The letter G was created by the Romans because they felt that C was not an adequate letter to represent both /k/ and /g/. Fascinatingly, the alleged inventor is a known historical figure, Spurius Carvilius Ruga (who flourished around 230 BC). G, which at this time took the place of the letter Z, came to represent the sound /g/. As the sound /k/ did, /g/ also developed palatal and velar allophones which is why today, G has different sound values in all Romance languages and English (due to French influence).

Usage

In English, the letter can be pronounced as a "soft G" (SAMPA: [dZ]), as in: giant, ginger, geology, or it can be pronounced as a "hard G" (SAMPA: [g]), as in: goose, gargoyle, game.

In Spanish, -ge- and -gi- are pronounced as -je- and -ji-. The Spanish poet Juan Ramón Jiménez proposed to simplify the Spanish spelling by using just the versions with j. Thus, while the rest of Spanish speakers didn't follow him, his works and the translations of Rabindranath Tagore made by Jiménez's wife Zenobia Camprubí are published in his spelling.

Alternate representations

Golf represents the letter G in the NATO phonetic alphabet.

In international Morse code the letter G is DahDahDit: - - ·

In Braille the letter G is represented as ⠛ (in Unicode), the dot pattern,

Computing

In Unicode the capital G is codepoint U+0047 and the lowercase g is U+0067.

The ASCII code for capital G is 71 and for lowercase g is 103; or in binary 01000111 and 01100111, correspondingly.

The EBCDIC code for capital G is 199 and for lowercase g is 135.

The numeric character references in HTML and XML are "G" and "g" for upper and lower case respectively.

Meanings for G

• In biochemistry,
  • G is the symbol for glycine and guanosine.
  • G is a type of protein.

• In the RGB color model, G stands for the color green.
• In computer games,
  • G is a character in Sega's House of the Dead series of arcade games,
  • G is the name of a currency in some computer role-playing games,
  • 'G' is the class of gnomes and 'g' is a gremlin in the Roguelike game Nethack.
• In computing, G is a binary prefix for giga, meaning 2³⁰ = 1,073,741,824 (cf. G as an SI prefix in the Metric system, given below)
• In electrical engineering, G is often used as the name of the variable for conductance.
• In English slang, g is short for "gangsta" or gangster.
• In film,
  • G is a rating given given by the Motion Picture Association of America, meaning the film is suitable for all ("general" audiences).
  • G is also the name of a British film from 1974; see G (film).
• In financial securities, G is the stock symbol for The Gillette Company
• In international licence plate codes, G stands for Gabon.
• In the Metric system,
  • capital G is the SI prefix for giga, meaning 10⁹ = 1,000,000,000 (one billion).
  • capital G is also the symbol for the unit of magnetic induction, the gauss.
  • lowercase g is the symbol for the unit of mass, the gram.
• In music, G is a note.
• In physics,
  • G is the gravitational constant.
  • g (always in lowercase) is the unit of acceleration due to gravity on Earth.
  • G (the gauss) is the cgs unit of magnetic induction
• In radiocommunication, G is one of the ITU prefixes allocated to the United Kingdom.
• In psychometrics, g (always in lowercase) is the symbol for general intelligence.
• In sexology, the G spot is a part of the vagina that allegedly causes an orgasm when stimulated.

See also

• "Ĝ" and "ĝ"
• "Ğ" and "ğ"

Two-letter combinations starting with G:

• ga gb gc gd ge gf gg gh gi gj gk gl gm gn go gp gq gr gs gt gu gv gw gx gy gz