Of Letters And Frequencies
February 17th, 2008LetterFrequency.org has a summary of the most commonly occurring letters of the English alphabet, in various writing contexts. It is interesting to note that the letter ‘h’ appears more often in every day speech and writing than it does in a list of dictionary words (aside: Lexus recently began an advertising campaign in the US highlighting the importance of the letter ‘H’, to promote their line of hybrid vehicles).
On a much more impressive note, author Ernest Vincent Wright in 1939 wrote a story of over 50,000 words without using the most common letter in the English alphabet. His book, Gadsby, is a lipogrammatic work of art and is famous for not containing the letter ‘e’ (except for the author’s introduction). The complete manuscript is available online, and is a must-read for students and enthusiasts of the English language.
The book accomplishes a literary task that to me seems daunting beyond belief. As the author himself puts it:
As the vowel E is used more than five times oftener than any other letter, this story was written, not through any attempt to attain literary merit, but due to a somewhat balky nature, caused by hearing it so constantly claimed that “it can’t be done; for you cannot say anything at all without using E, and make smooth continuity, with perfectly grammatical construction—” so ‘twas said.
Charming.
