What is the least used letter?

[Laurence Horn]

At 11:22 AM -0700 4/9/07, David Borowitz wrote:
>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Letter_frequencies
>
>Z. If you don't believe it, it's quick and easy to count letter frequencies
>in large corpora.

So, sic transit gloria ETAOIN SHRDLU.  Not that this deviates
wildly--the difference between "u" and "c" is presumably within the
margin for error.  And "Etaoin shrdlcu" is harder to pronounce (much
less to name memorable characters in novels after; I refer of course
to the eponymous hero of _The Circus of Dr. Lao_).

As for the bottom-dwellers, this count does restore one's faith in
Scrabble (10 points for Q/Z, 8 for X/J, etc.).

LH

>
>On 4/9/07, Tom Zurinskas <truespel at hotmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>---------------------- Information from the mail header
>>-----------------------
>>Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>>Poster:       Tom Zurinskas <truespel at HOTMAIL.COM>
>>Subject:      What is the least used letter?
>>
>>-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>
>>I wonder what is the least used letter?
>>
>>Tom Zurinskas, USA - CT20, TN3, NJ33, FL4+

------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org