D

Dad

Capital D if it’s just Dad, eg I’ll have to ask Dad; otherwise lowercase, eg my dad was an accountant, what does your dad do? etc

Dakar

The capital of Senegal; Dhaka capital of Bangladesh.

Dalek

Takes an initial cap, whether being used literally (as in the Doctor Who monster) or figuratively (as in describing, say, your boss…)

Dalí, Salvador

(1904–89) Spanish surrealist.

Dancefloor

One word.

danish pastry

Lowercase d; a danish.

darknet, the

dashcam

dashes

A single dash can add a touch of drama—like this. But use sparingly.

A pair of dashes are an alternative to commas or brackets for parenthesis when you want to draw the reader’s attention to something surprising or unusual. Commas will, more often than not, suffice.

Beware sentences—such as this one—that dash about all over the place—commas (or even, very occasionally, brackets) are often better; semicolons also have their uses.

Dashes should be em dashes rather than en dashes or hyphens, and shouldn’t be sandwiched by spaces.

data

Takes a singular verb (like agenda), though strictly a plural; you come across a datum about as often as you hear about an agendum.

different from

is traditionally the correct form; different to is widely accepted nowadays, but note the difference between:

She looked very different to those who came before to the people who came before, she looked very different.

She looked very different from those who came before she did not look like the people who came before

Different than is frowned on, at least in British English; and it’s always differs from, not differs to.