What are the six least-used letters in the English alphabet?

skelly · Apr 4, 2007

I'm not going to go into why I need to know this, but, does anybody have an authoritative answer to this question? My own search engine research gave me K V Q X J Z based on the research of Dr. August Dvorak. The problem, of course, is that he did that research back in 1932, so I would imagine that, his revolutionary keyboard layout aside, the vocabulary has changed sufficiently that the aforementioned letters may no longer actually be the least used. I see a lot of different candidates for the honor listed on the web. Most of them have Q X and Z. Many of them trade W and Y for K and J. The Dvorak-keyboard promoting website listed the 26 letters of the English alphabet, from most to least used, as follows:

E T A O I H N S R D L U W G C Y M F P B K V Q X J Z

Does anybody have a better source on this? Thanks in advance.

--Scott

arrowqueen · Apr 4, 2007

This probably sounds mad - but how about Scrabble tiles? (On the grounds that presumably they did research before they put the scores on them.)

skelly · Apr 4, 2007

I never even thought of that. I'll check it out. Thanks for the idea

Silver King · Apr 4, 2007

skelly said:
My own search engine research gave me K V Q X J Z based on the research of Dr. August Dvorak. The problem, of course, is that he did that research back in 1932...

Do you really think our language has changed that much since then?

Besides new words like, "Yo, Homey," and "Bling-bling," I'd say August Dvorak knew what he was talking about. We haven't invented any new consonants or vowels in a very long time, so what he says still applies to this day, and most likely will continue to do so for hundreds of years to come.

Sage · Apr 4, 2007

Haven't done official research or anything, but I'm surprised by the order. I've heard that R is the most common consonant. In the same vein as Scrabble tiles, RSTNL are the the automatic consonants on Wheel of Fortune's final round

Duncan J Macdonald · Apr 4, 2007

skelly said:
I'm not going to go into why I need to know this, but, does anybody have an authoritative answer to this question? My own search engine research gave me K V Q X J Z based on the research of Dr. August Dvorak. The problem, of course, is that he did that research back in 1932, so I would imagine that, his revolutionary keyboard layout aside, the vocabulary has changed sufficiently that the aforementioned letters may no longer actually be the least used. I see a lot of different candidates for the honor listed on the web. Most of them have Q X and Z. Many of them trade W and Y for K and J. The Dvorak-keyboard promoting website listed the 26 letters of the English alphabet, from most to least used, as follows:

E T A O I H N S R D L U W G C Y M F P B K V Q X J Z

Does anybody have a better source on this? Thanks in advance.

--Scott

I'd suggest looking at cryptanalysis sources. This site shows the list from Fletcher Pratt, Secret and Urgent: the Story of Codes and Ciphers Blue Ribbon Books, 1939, p. 252:

E T A O N R I S H D L F C M U G Y P W B V K X J Q Z

This would give you V K X J Q Z as the six least used letters.

-- Trust the people who make and break codes and cyphers -- it's their job --

The math weenies at Cornell University have a slightly different list dated 2003-2004, slightly more recent than Mr. Pratt's or Dr. Dvorak.

E T A O I N S R H D L U C M F Y W G P B V K X Q J Z

This would give you V K X Q J Z, which only switches the Q and J.

blacbird · Apr 4, 2007

Some years ago, for a completely different purpose, I wrote a little MS-DOS program to allow me to use my keyboard as a point counter. An unanticipated side-effect of this, I discovered, is that I could use the same program to filter a text-file to enumerate the occurrences of individual letters. So . . . I just ran a test of a 6000+ character file to see what the results were:

E 788
T 575
I 547
O 539
N 497
A 461
H 410
S 401
L 336
R 327
D 323
U 163
C 148
G 135
M 134
W 133
F 127
Y 126
P 115
K 114
B 100
X 77
V 49
J 6
Q 2
Z 2

Kind of neat to see how close this comes to the "expert" results previously cited. Particularly intriguing is the apparent numerical gap in frequency between the top 11 and the bottom 15.

caw

Noddy Rider · Apr 4, 2007

"I'm sorry."

skelly · Apr 4, 2007

Great information. Thanks all.

Maryn · Apr 8, 2007

Silver King said:
Do you really think our language has changed that much since then?

Besides new words like, "Yo, Homey," and "Bling-bling," I'd say August Dvorak knew what he was talking about. We haven't invented any new consonants or vowels in a very long time, so what he says still applies to this day, and most likely will continue to do so for hundreds of years to come.

Clearly you're not up on your Seuss. I mean, if you care to discuss Floob-Boober-Bab-Boober-Bubs, you need the letter FLOOB, fer cryin' out loud.

Maryn, whose kids loved that book

Soccer Mom · Apr 11, 2007

Maryn said:
Clearly you're not up on your Seuss. I mean, if you care to discuss Floob-Boober-Bab-Boober-Bubs, you need the letter FLOOB, fer cryin' out loud.

Maryn, whose kids loved that book

And don't forget the Zizzer-zazzer-zuzz.... (another great book)

NTG · Apr 12, 2007

Sometimes to pass the time while driving on the interstate, I play the alphabet game. You start with A, looking at billboards, signs, passing trucks, car nameplates, whatever, until you see one. Then you go for B, C, and so on.

Things go rapidly until you get to J, at which point you come to a screeching halt. J is rare. After you find one, K is not often a problem. There's lots of K's. Things continue to go quickly until you stop at Q. Q can take a long time, and it usually appears in the word Quality. Then X can take a long time, while you pray for a sign that says "exit". Y takes a little while, then it may be many miles before you spot a Z. That's only five letters that are noticeably rare.

NG

Lance_in_Shanghai · Apr 15, 2007

z q j x k v (order is from Z, least commonly used) for all words in the language.
q z x j b k for general fiction writing

Source: http://deafandblind.com/word_frequency.htm#letter-frequency-word-averages

For Scrabble English edition, the single tiles are: J K Q X and Z. Hmm... That's only five.

What are the six least-used letters in the English alphabet?

skelly

Kickin it old school, posers beware

arrowqueen

RIP, our sarky besom

skelly

Kickin it old school, posers beware

Silver King

Megalops Erectus

Sage

Our Lady of Parentheticals

Duncan J Macdonald

Plotting! Not Plodding!

blacbird

Noddy Rider

skelly

Kickin it old school, posers beware

Maryn

Not Any More

Soccer Mom

Crypto-fascist

NTG

Lance_in_Shanghai