Kate Middleton
Many women use the Duchess of Cambridge's nose as inspiration for plastic surgery. Reuters/Alastair Grant/Pool

A simple, inadvertent utterance of the letter “D” was all it took for rumors to start swirling Monday about the sex of Duchess of Cambridge Kate Middleton’s baby.

A woman handed 31-year-old Middleton a teddy bear, and The Sun quoted her as saying:

“Thank you, I will take that for my d... for my baby.”

After her clumsy slip while she was on her way to visit Grimsby, Lincolnshire, the pregnant royal insisted she did not know the sex of her child.

Maybe she’s just sensing it’s a girl?

Sandra Cook was supposedly standing next to the woman who handed Middleton the white bear. She told The Sun: “As she handed it over I distinctly heard Kate say,

"‘Thank you, I will take that for my d... ’

“Then she stopped and corrected herself to say, ‘... for my baby’.

“When she shook hands with me I said, ‘You nearly slipped up there, you were going to say daughter, weren’t you?’ She smiled and said, ‘What do you mean? We don’t know yet.’

“I teased her and said, ‘Oh I think you do’ — to which, still smiling, she replied, ‘We’re not telling.’"

Cook, 67, is a mother of two and reportedly waited in the cold for two hours to Middleton during her solo visit to Grimsby. Prince William, 30, was said to be tied up with RAF duties.

She added: “It was worth every cold minute. This lady giving her a teddy seemed to take her by surprise. Everyone else was giving flowers.

“I’m certain it’s a girl. She wouldn’t have said the D-word otherwise. After she said it, she was a little flustered.”

Parliament is in the midst of changing the law of succession to pass the British crown to the eldest offspring, regardless of sex, changing centuries of practice that gave precedence to sons. It must be approved by all Commonwealth countries that share the monarch, which are rushing to pass it before the royal birth.

Do you think she’ll name the child Diana if it turns out to be a girl?