Talking Points Memo has a squib that begins thusly:
“Etaoin srhldcu” may read like nonsense to most English speakers upon first blush, but as it turns out, the combination is quite significant. It represents, in order, the most used letters in the English language, according to a new survey of 743 billion words conducted by Google’s head of research Peter Norvig.
Actually, it doesn’t read like nonsense, at least to English speakers over 60. As TMP eventually goes on to point out, in the old days of printing, the keyboards of what were known as Linotype machines had the letters arranged in what was then assumed to the most frequent order of use: etaoin shrdlu. For a variety of reasons, operators would sometimes type these letters as a signal (for an error, the end of a story, etc.) and often the signal, instead of being edited out, would be left in the story. TPM doesn’t go on to tell you that Etaoin Shrdlu became an inside joke among journalists, but, fortunately, Michael Quinion is all over it.*
*Since Mike is a Brit, he misses the most common American usage, in Mad magazine.
