Why don’t the contestants on Jeopardy go down the line of the consonants in etaoin shrdlu, buying vowels as necessary. Or do they? Sometimes I have to watch a few minutes of it because of dropping in to a bar or home where the inmates are actually watching it. Also, what comes after etaoin
shrdlu in frequency of appearance? (And I am now wondering what the sequence is in French for example, a more interesting question).
Um, dude.
That’s Wheel of Fortune.
Interesting indeed!
According to this site it is ESARIN TULOMD
(But it gives no references.)
I’ve already found a (slightly) more reliable source. (Or so I’d like to think. Have a look here)
The page also gives the number of words in the respective corpus (corpi?) used for the countings. In some cases as few as 1700 (Spanish)
I appologise for the two-letter symbols for accents etc, but I’m not re-coding this.
Note that this page doesnt agree with the otherwise accepted ETAOIN SHRDLU, in the second part.
It would also be rude not to include links to Cecil’s previous columns:
What’s the origin of the mysterious phrase “etaoin shrdlu”? and ETAOIN SHRDLU revisited (which claims etaonishrdlu)
KneadToKnow, have a look at the second link I provided, for a list of “all 94 distinct printing characters”
ESARIN is the distribution order for French according to that site.
You got a problem with that?
Read the question again. For your reading pleasure I will reproduce the relevant part here:
Although the answer I gave later proved to be wrong, I believe I tried to answer the right question…
Because the letter frequency “etaoin shrdlu” applies to the language as a whole, not single sentences or phrases.
Plus, I’m sure the writers try to steer away from phrases that are too predictable by a letter frequency.
For the final game, LSTRN & E are given first, and quite often not much is revealed in the puzzle.