-etaoin shrdlu-

The Indological Knowledgebase

The approximate order of frequency of the most commonly used letters in the English language, ETAOIN SHRDLU (pronounced eh-tay-oh-in shird-loo or eh-tay-oyn shird-lu) is best known as a nonsense phrase that sometimes appeared in print due to a quirk of Linotype machines, which dominated publishing for a century until being replaced by computers. The complete sequence is ETAOIN SHRDLU CMFGYP WBVKXJ QZ.