What Is The Most Common Letter Used In English? It's Not The Letter 'A'

Most Common Letter:  The English language's most common letter is found in nearly 11 per cent of all English words. In written and verbal content, this letter of the English alphabet is also the most used. The most common English letter is not ‘A,’ but the letter ‘E.’From words like be, he, me, to longer terms like experience, development, or celebration, 'E' is almost inevitable in everyday communication. Letter frequency has been examined by linguists and statisticians for centuries, particularly in contexts like cryptography and language study.

In frequency lists generated from large sets of English texts, 'E' always takes the number one position, while 'A,' being a highly used vowel, typically finishes second or third. The existence of 'E' is, to some extent, due to the basic letter usage of the letter in English, which draws so much from Latin, French, and Germanic origins, all languages that use 'E' extensively.

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The value of understanding which letters are most frequent is more than trivia. For instance, in World War II, codebreakers considered the frequent occurrence of 'E' while breaking German codes. Nowadays, puzzle setters, authors, and game developers apply letter frequency information in constructing crosswords, word games, or puzzles like Hangman. Even keyboard layouts are made such a way, that the placement of E is based on the above reasons for fast typing speed and ease.

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In a surprising twist, authors have even attempted to exclude 'E' entirely, a skill called a lipogram. The concept became famous in the 1939 novel Gadsby by Ernest Vincent Wright, with more than 50,000 words and not a single 'E'.

Thus, though most of us reflexively assume 'A' is queen, really it is 'E' that quietly dominates the English alphabet, defining our sentences, stories, and even our secrets.