the.com/letters
twenty-six shapes that built every argument, love affair, and lie in history
means The individual symbols of an alphabet, or, in the plural, written messages sent from one person to another.
from From Latin 'littera,' a single letter of the alphabet, which in the plural 'litterae' came to mean a written document or epistle — the same root that gives us 'literature' and 'literacy.' It reached English through Old French 'lettre.' The deeper origins of 'littera' are murky; one old guess links it to 'linere,' to smear or daub — fittingly, the act of marking a surface with ink — but scholars regard that connection as uncertain.
oldest alphabetPhoenician script seeded Greek, Latin, and most others
missing lettersEnglish once had thorn, eth, and ash
vowel powerJust five vowels carry nearly every English word
least usedQ appears in under one percent of words
e dominatesMost common letter, found in about eleven percent of text