Gallery: A & E, the most common letters in our language?
When Samuel Morse invented the Morse Code he wanted to assign the simplest codes to the most frequently used letters. To work out what those were he counted the number of letters in sets of printers’ type. He found that the most commonly used letter was E, followed by T, then A.
However, this method identified the letter frequency in English texts, which is dominated by a relatively small number of common words. If you play Wordle or any similar game you might be more interested in the frequency of letters in the full English vocabulary, regardless of word frequency. Apparently an analysis of the letters occurring in all the words listed in the main entries of the Concise Oxford Dictionary indicated that E is again the most common letter (appearing in around 11% of all words), followed this time by A (appearing in about 8.5%).
All of which is by way of introduction to my selection of images for Cee’s March alphabet challenge, looking for images of objects with an A and an E in the name. It’s been a while since I last played along so I thought it would be fun to do so this month. And I found that while these letters might be common, finding them in the same word wasn’t always easy!
ABBEY
St Alban’s Abbey, Hertfordshire, England
BEACH
Sandcastle on the beach at Torremolinos, Spain
CAMEL
Near Taqah, Oman
CATHEDRAL
The Catedral Metropolitana de Santiago, Chile
CATTLE
Near Djiffer, Senegal
EAGLE
Bald Eagle at a Birds of Prey centre in Bedfordshire, England
[my feature photo is of an African Fish Eagle at the same centre]
ELEPHANT
Two bull elephants in a stand-off, Chobe National Park, Botswana
HARLEY
Harley Davidson in Taos, New Mexico
LAKE
Lago Pehoe, Torres del Paine, Chile
LEAVES
A tree at Monte Alban, near Oaxaca, Mexico
MARMOSET
At Praia do Forte, Brazil
PEACOCK
At Bachkovo Monastery, Bulgaria
SALINERAS
Salt pans, Salineras de Maras, Peru
44 Comments
SoyBend
I especially liked your camel and your cattle photos, Sarah.
Sarah Wilkie
Thank you Siobhan 🙂
Alison
A challenge indeed Sarah. So did you think of your words first and then search for the photos or look through your archives first.
The first thing I do every morning is play Wordle and you’re right I use a word with AE and one other vowel.
Sarah Wilkie
Thank you Alison 🙂 It was a bit of both actually! I thought of a few words and looked for photos to match, and while doing that came across others that would also work. And I always start Wordle with a word with A & E, but otherwise all consonants.
equinoxio21
PS. I suspect A and E are probably most frequent in French too… A and O in Spanish? U maybe…
Sarah Wilkie
E in French for sure!
equinoxio21
Haven’t played Scrabble for years but I seem to remember that E was worth 1…
equinoxio21
Interesting challenge… (and results)
Sarah Wilkie
Thank you 🙂
grandmisadventures
Great pictures! I really love the peacock feathers so close- so pretty 🙂
Sarah Wilkie
Thanks Meg 🙂 I love getting close to bird feathers, the details are always amazing!
Monkey's Tale
That’s a great marmoset picture! And of course I love the elephants! Maggie
Sarah Wilkie
Thanks Maggie – I can never resist the opportunity to include elephants in a post!
Heyjude
Brilliant! Both photos and selection Sarah. You have such a variety of subjects.
Sarah Wilkie
Thanks so much Jude 😊 I do like to mix things up when I can!
Cee Neuner
Beautiful photography Sarah 😀
Sarah Wilkie
Thank you Cee, and for the fun challenge 🙂
Suzanne@PictureRetirement
Sarah, I am forever amazed at your gallery of images. It’s like you have been traveling and shooting since you were 12! Beautiful.
Sarah Wilkie
Thanks so much Suzanne 😊 Actually, I have been shooting since around that age although I only have a handful of photos from back then of course, and none of these go back that far! The oldest is the marmoset in Brazil, from 2001. But I’m planning on including a very old shot in my next Lens Artists challenge post!
Anonymous
Aha, a marmoset! Saw one the other day but we haven’t managed to get a photo yet. Liking your alphabet stats…
Sarah Wilkie
From the comment I’m guessing this must be Phil? I have no idea why it’s come through as an anonymous comment and needing approval! This marmoset was in the grounds of our hotel and used to people feeding them by hand, so very easy to photograph 🙂
Graham Stephen
splendid gallery!
✨🐰🐇🐥🐣🥚🐣🐥🐇🐰✨
Sarah Wilkie
Thank you Graham 🙂
Natalie
Beautiful photos for a fun challenge, Sarah. I really like the eagle photos.
Sarah Wilkie
Thank you Natalie 🙂 Eagles are such majestic birds!
kzmcb
You said it was hard, but that’s not what it looks like. What a huge range of images and countries.
Sarah Wilkie
Thank you 😀 It was hard at first, then I got into a roll!
Alli Templeton
You’ve more than risen to this challenge, Sarah, and your selection is, as always, excellent. The animals are all superb, and the eagle positively regal – there you are, a ‘regal eagle’, that might even fit nicely into the alphabet challenge! And as for that sand castle – well, that’s worthy of a Plantagenet king! 🙂 Well done, always a pleasure to see your work. 🙂
Sarah Wilkie
Thanks so much Alli 😊 You’re right about that sandcastle, it’s very impressive. And I like your ‘regal eagle’ suggestion!
Marilyn Armstrong
As usual, great photos. Interesting how the African Fish Eagle looks almost the same — except for the bi-colored beak in the African — as the Bald Eagle. Eagles and other really big birds seem to have crossed continents. There are Golden Eagles in Africa, Asia, Europe and the North America. The colors differ slightly but they are the same bird. Those are powerful birds. Too bad they don’t have guns to shoot back at the poachers.
Sarah Wilkie
Thank you Marilyn 😊 Yes, that struck me about the two eagles, looking at them side by side. I think if you see the full body there are more differences in colouration (the fish eagle feathers are more red-toned) but generally they’re very clearly related.
Anonymous
Brilliant! And great accompanying images!
Sarah Wilkie
Thank you 🙂
Marie
Sometimes, the wider the options the tougher the challenge – I’m sure you were spoilt for choice….
I’m with Annie – the salt flats and peacock are my favs
Sarah Wilkie
That’s a good point Marie, maybe working with such often-used letters did make it harder to choose!
Marilyn Armstrong
I could have used pretty much any picture with a few exceptions — like orchid and moon. Otherwise, almost everything had either or both letters.
Annie Berger
Great choice of photos to include in the A and E challenge. My favorites were the peacock and the salt flats. Also enjoyed reading about Morse.
Sarah Wilkie
Thanks Annie, it’s always good to hear which are your favourites 🙂 The salt pans photo is a very old one, so I’m glad it got your vote!
margaret21
Clever stuff – with wonderful photos as usual.
Sarah Wilkie
Thank you Margaret 😀
Anne Sandler
Well done Sarah and beautiful images to illustrate.
Sarah Wilkie
Thank you Anne, so glad you liked them 😀
Teresa
But you found a lot of good ones. Wonderful photos Sarah.
Sarah Wilkie
Thank you Teresa, I’m glad you liked my choices 😊