The letter D, to take a cue from the Cole Porter song, is delightful, delicious and delovely.
That is, if the number of companies here which adopt that letter of the alphabet in their names is any indication.
Check the Yellow Pages Business Listings and you will find 124 companies sporting multiple permutations of D' before their names.
D'homme Barber Stylist, D'Hair Solutions & Beauty Place and D'Cutting Edge are hair salons of course. D'Bun is a handmade bao shop while D'Equestrian Paradise sells riding-related paraphernalia.
Even public spaces have gotten in on the act. A humble patch of grass at Pasir Ris Park has been elevated with the grandiose name, D'Lawn.
So what is the fuss over D?
It is not just the vaguely French air of sophistication that comes from the winning combination of that one letter and an apostrophe. Another big reason is the Singaporean love for abbreviation.
Mr Ron Teo, 33, managing director of media booking company D'zire Mediad, told LifeStyle! that he never meant for the name of his company to sound French.
'I just thought the D' would make the name sound more interesting and innovative.'
Most companies that Life! spoke to said the D' is an abbreviation of 'the', which shortens the company's name and makes it sound chic too.
Ms Delphine Leon, 35, who hails from France and is the managing director of local interior design firm D'apres Nous, which means 'according to us', says that Singaporeans find it hard to pronounce the company's name but they like it because it is French.
'We get a good mix of local and foreign clients, and we do get asked what our name means,' she says.
While D'apres Nous is an authentically French name, she has a caveat for local companies brandishing their pseudo-French titles.
'As much as I think that companies should have proper branding, even if they use French, the names should be spelt correctly. If not, they will not sound serious about what they do,' she says.
While D'Surge Marketing, a four-year-old company supplying tertiary academic textbooks to private schools in Singapore, might sound French, owner Michael Goh says it was another nation that inspired the name.
The 41-year-old says: 'The inspiration for the name actually came from the Thai word 'dee' which means 'good', so I thought Dee Surge, or D'Surge for short, was an appropriate name for the company.'
Sometimes, the indiscriminate use of D' leads to rather unexpected combinations. Take D'Crypt for example, which does not deal with products for the afterlife. Rather, it is a Singaporean company that produces security devices.
Assistant professor Ng Bee Chin, 47, from the Division of Linguistics and Multilingual Studies at the Nanyang Technological University, says the name trend is partly due to France's strong cultural brand.
She says: 'People associate the French language with culture and fashion. They think anything that sounds French is trendy. Having French names also makes them sound cosmopolitan. There is definitely the prestige factor there.'
Another possible reason, she adds, could be the colonial hangover: 'It may be the colonial mindset that people have - anything English, French or German is considered good.'
Frenchman and French-language teacher Pierre Duffie, 38, is more than happy that companies are using 'French' names.
'It is very positive to see that French names are associated with a good image,' he says.
But what if the companies are butchering the French language? After all, France has actually set up an institution, the Academie Francaise, as the stern watchdog to preserve its language.
Mr Duffie says: 'I think many companies are partially transforming the French language but that is not important. We are talking about the flair of French atmosphere here, not of pure grammar.
'Even in France, it is hard to control the absolute integrity of the French language, so there is no interest in interfering with its evolution abroad.'
Appropriate or not, it looks like d' love affair is here to stay.
This article was first published in The Straits Times on 6 July 2008.
