Home › Glossary › Letter C

Chargaff

Historical Figure
Pronunciation

Understanding ARPABET Pronunciation

Want to hear it? Click the Listen button to hear the browser speak the word using text-to-speech!

The pronunciation guide uses the ARPABET phonetic system—the same system used in speech recognition and text-to-speech applications.

Vowel Examples:
AE1 = cat, bat
EH1 = bed, head
IY1 = see, me
OW1 = go, boat
UW1 = boot, do
Stress Numbers:
0 = no stress (unstressed)
1 = primary stress (loud)
2 = secondary stress (medium)
Example:
AH0 TH IY1 N AH0
= a-THEE-na (Athena)

The stressed syllable (marked with 1) is pronounced louder and clearer than others.

Quick Definition

Erwin Chargaff, a scientist whose work helped reveal how DNA bases pair.

Detailed Definition
Chargaff was a biochemist whose rules about base pairing were crucial to understanding DNA structure. In the poem, the name points to the scientific history behind the discovery of the double helix.
Example
Example in poetry:
Chargaff’s rules whispered in the night, linking poetic pattern to DNA’s paired bases; Chargaff found that adenine pairs proportionally with thymine; In a science poem, Chargaff’s initials become a genetic refrain; The double helix answers Chargaff with complementary letters
Additional Notes
"Chargaff's" is a proper name that identifies a specific scientist, so readers may need to know who is meant.; Found in the poem, The Double Helix by Richard
Also Known As
Chargaff's rules base pairing genetic pairing nucleic acid principles
Skip to main content