There are loads of alternative ways to play Wordle, The New York Times’ partaking on-line word-guessing sport. Personally, I like to stay with starter phrases that I do know function a few of the most regularly used letters within the English language. (TRAIN and CLOSE are amongst my favorites.)
But precisely which letters are essentially the most generally used? I reached out to the large brains on the Oxford English Dictionary — you recognize, the whopping, multi-volume dictionary that nobody truly owns, however that your college librarian adored. An OED consultant despatched me an inventory during which workers analyzed the entire most important entries within the concise model of the dictionary.
“It’s price noting that the piece is fairly previous,” the OED consultant mentioned apologetically. “It mentions that the stats are from Concise Oxford English Dictionary in 2004, though present colleagues aren’t positive when the piece itself was written, and I’m afraid we have no newer evaluation of this kind.”
The checklist could also be 20 years previous, however I’m going with it. The alphabet is not like ice cream flavors or musical acts — no new, fashionable letters have been launched in that point. So whether or not you are simply moving into Wordle, otherwise you wish to shake up your starter phrases and ensure they’re nonetheless hitting the most typical letters, this checklist is for you.
S begins essentially the most English phrases
The commonest letter isn’t any shock to most individuals: It’s E, and it is instantly adopted by one other vowel, A. And these letters are a lot, rather more widespread than the ultimate two letters within the OED’s checklist, that are J and Q. (Anyone else shocked that J is used lower than X and Z?)
“The letter E is over 56 occasions extra widespread than Q in forming particular person English phrases,” the OED evaluation discovered.
It notes that “there are extra English phrases starting with the letter S than with another letter.”
So Wordle gamers, bookmark this text, and also you would possibly end up doing just a little higher in upcoming video games. Here are the letters of the alphabet ranked based on how regularly they confirmed up within the 2004 Concise Oxford English Dictionary.
The commonest letters utilized in English
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E
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A
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R
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I
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O
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T
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N
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S
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L
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C
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U
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D
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P
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M
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H
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G
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B
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F
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Y
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W
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Okay
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V
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X
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Z
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J
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Q