Saturday, August 15, 2009

Public Service Announcement

I was just watching Wheel of Fortune, and I am forced to the conclusion that there are lot of people that don't bother to prepare for the game.

Since the contestants win money by correctly guessing letters that might be in the puzzle, simply using the normal distribution of letters in the English language dramatically increases the chances of winning. I mean, there's a REASON that one has to 'buy' vowels: they constitute 5 of the first 12 most common letters.

For those that would like a quick and easy 'tool' to remember, the most frequent 12 letters in the English language are (in order)

ETAOIN SHRDLU

If you'd like to see the full distribution, you can either see it as a graph in alphabetical order, or in the most- to least-used order.

If anyone reading this should happen to find themselves on WoF, and win whacking great wads of money, you're welcome to show your appreciation by sending some of it to me.

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