Not all letters pull their weight. In ordinary English, a small group of letters does most of the work while others are barely spotted. Knowing which is which gives you a competitive edge in almost every word game, from Wordle to Scrabble.
The letters that do the heavy lifting
The single most common letter in English is E, which accounts for around 12.7% of all letters in typical writing. After that come T at about 9%, A at about 8%, and then O, I, N, S, H, and R. Those top nine letters, often remembered as the string ETAOIN SHR, make up roughly 70% of everything we write, according to standard letter-frequency counts.
The phrase that fell off a keyboard
Printers worked out English letter frequency long before data scientists did, and one machine turned it into an accidental piece of folklore. The Linotype, invented by Ottmar Mergenthaler in the 1880s and later praised by Thomas Edison as the eighth wonder of the world, cast whole lines of type from molten metal and reshaped the newspaper business. Its keyboard was laid out by letter frequency rather than in the QWERTY pattern, so the two most-used columns, read top to bottom, spelled ETAOIN and SHRDLU.
That layout created a quirk. An operator could not backspace to fix a mistake, so the quickest way to kill a bad line was to run a finger straight down those first two columns and eject the slug. The result, etaoin shrdlu, was meant to be thrown away, but tired compositors sometimes missed it and the nonsense slipped into the printed paper. It showed up often enough that readers learned to recognise it.
The phrase then took on a life of its own. In 1942 the science-fiction writer Fredric Brown published a short story called “Etaoin Shrdlu” about a Linotype that comes to life and can only be calmed by setting Buddhist scripture until it reaches Nirvana. And when the New York Times printed its final hot-metal edition on 2 July 1978, the documentary that recorded the day was called Farewell, Etaoin Shrdlu. Those machines set about 14 lines a minute, while the computers that replaced them the next day managed closer to a thousand. The film took its title from that famous glitch.
The letters that are rarely seen
At the other end sit Z, Q, J, and X, which together make up less than 1% of written English. Their rarity is the whole reason they carry the highest point values in word games. A letter you almost never need is a letter worth hoarding for a big play.
What this means for Wordle
Letter frequency is the entire logic behind a strong Wordle opener. A good first guess loads up on common letters, especially the vowels and the frequent consonants R, S, T, and N, so you learn as much as possible from a single line. We work through the maths in our guide to the best starting words for Wordle, and our Wordle Solver runs on the same frequency logic to rank your best options once you have a few clues on the board.
What it means for Scrabble and Words With Friends
Scrabble scoring is letter frequency turned upside down. Common letters like E, A, and I are worth a single point because they are easy to place. The rare letters carry the big numbers, with Q and Z worth 10 points each precisely because they almost never appear. The skill is spending them before they strand you at the end of a game, which is where a Scrabble Word Finder earns its keep by surfacing the high-scoring plays hiding in an awkward rack.
A note for anagrams
The same knowledge speeds up unscrambling. When you face a jumble, the common letters usually form the skeleton of the word and the rare ones tell you where it has to bend. Spot the E and the vowels first, then work the consonants around them, a habit we walk through in our guide to anagram solving strategies. If you would rather skip to the answer, the Anagram Solver does the sorting for you.
If you love solving anagram, give our Daily Anagram Puzzle a try!
Frequently asked questions
What is the most common letter in English?
E, by a wide margin. It makes up around 12.7% of all letters in typical English writing, well ahead of the next letters, T and A.
What are the most common letters in English?
In order, the most common are E, T, A, O, I, N, S, H, and R. Together these nine letters account for roughly 70% of all the letters we write.
What are the least common letters in English?
Z, Q, J, and X are the rarest, together making up less than 1% of written English. That scarcity is why they score the most points in games like Scrabble.
What does ETAOIN SHRDLU mean?
It is the order of the most frequently used letters in English, and it was the layout of the first two key columns on a Linotype typesetting machine. Operators ran a finger down those columns to discard a botched line, and the nonsense sometimes reached print. The phrase later named a 1942 Fredric Brown short story and the 1978 film about the New York Times’ last hot-metal edition.
How does letter frequency help in word games?
It guides which letters to test first. In Wordle, a common-letter opener reveals more of the answer. In Scrabble and Words With Friends, frequency explains the scoring, since the rarest letters are worth the most points.