{"id":2747,"date":"2020-01-17T16:07:55","date_gmt":"2020-01-17T16:07:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/kinneybrothers.com\/blog\/?p=2747"},"modified":"2024-04-20T21:29:00","modified_gmt":"2024-04-20T21:29:00","slug":"fun-facts-40-letter-s","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kinneybrothers.com\/blog\/blog\/2020\/01\/17\/fun-facts-40-letter-s\/","title":{"rendered":"Fun Facts About English #40 &#8211; The Letter &#8216;s&#8217;"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.teacherspayteachers.com\/Store\/Donalds-English-Classroom\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" height=\"702\" width=\"702\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/kinneybrothers.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/11\/040.jpg?resize=702%2C702&#038;ssl=1\" alt=\"Kinney Brothers Publishing Fun Facts About English 40\"\/><\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>There are more English words beginning with the letter <em>s<\/em> than with any other letter mainly because of clusters such as <em>sc<\/em>, <em>sh<\/em>, <em>sp<\/em>, and <em>st<\/em>.  Followed by some distance are words that begin with <em>p<\/em>, <em>c<\/em>, <em>d<\/em>, <em>m<\/em>, and <em>a<\/em>.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>According to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.wolfram.com\/language\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" aria-label=\" (opens in a new tab)\">Wolfram Language<\/a>, a computational knowledge engine, in a list of 40,127 common words, <em>s<\/em> has 4,635 entries &#8211; as compared to <em>x<\/em> which only has 11.  This simple Wolfram word cloud expresses the most frequent initial letters in the English language:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\"><figure class=\"aligncenter size-large\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/kinneybrothers.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/01\/O_23.png?w=702&#038;ssl=1\" alt=\"Wolfram Language word cloud\"\/><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p>Bear in mind that the frequency of initial letters has no relationship to how often letters occur in English in general.  <a aria-label=\" (opens in a new tab)\" href=\"https:\/\/kinneybrothers.com\/blog\/blog\/2019\/10\/19\/fun-facts-about-english-27\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\"><em>E<\/em> is the most common letter<\/a>, followed by <em>t<\/em> and then <em>a<\/em>.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>If you enjoy learning fun facts about the English language, you may be interested in reading about <a href=\"https:\/\/kinneybrothers.com\/blog\/blog\/2020\/12\/21\/fun-facts-94-x\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">The Power of <em>X<\/em><\/a>, why <a href=\"https:\/\/kinneybrothers.com\/blog\/blog\/2020\/10\/24\/fun-facts-79-zee\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Americans say \/zee\/<\/a> when the rest of the world says \/zed\/, or <a href=\"https:\/\/kinneybrothers.com\/blog\/blog\/2019\/09\/20\/fun-facts-23-ampersand\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">how the ampersand (&amp;) was once part of the English alphabet<\/a>!<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-pale-cyan-blue-background-color has-background\">See the <a href=\"https:\/\/kinneybrothers.com\/blog\/blog\/2020\/01\/10\/fun-facts-about-english-39\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" aria-label=\" (opens in a new tab)\">previous<\/a><strong> <\/strong> or <a href=\"https:\/\/kinneybrothers.com\/blog\/blog\/2020\/01\/24\/fun-facts-about-english-41\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" aria-label=\" (opens in a new tab)\">next<\/a> <strong>Fun Facts About English<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.teacherspayteachers.com\/Store\/Donalds-English-Classroom\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/kinneybrothers.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/09\/HEADER_GIF.gif?w=702&#038;ssl=1\" alt=\"Donald's English Classroom Fun Facts About English 40\"\/><\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>Add punch to your classroom decor!  Visit <a href=\"https:\/\/www.teacherspayteachers.com\/Store\/Donalds-English-Classroom\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" aria-label=\" (opens in a new tab)\">Donald&#8217;s English Classroom<\/a> for <a href=\"https:\/\/www.teacherspayteachers.com\/Store\/Donalds-English-Classroom\/Search:wall+maps\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" aria-label=\" (opens in a new tab)\">wall maps<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.teacherspayteachers.com\/Store\/Donalds-English-Classroom\/Category\/ESL-Charts-23328\/Search:wall+art\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" aria-label=\" (opens in a new tab)\">wall art<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.teacherspayteachers.com\/Store\/Donalds-English-Classroom\/Category\/ESL-Charts-23328\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" aria-label=\" (opens in a new tab)\">charts<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.teacherspayteachers.com\/Store\/Donalds-English-Classroom\/Category\/ESL-Charts-23328\/Search:pennants\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" aria-label=\" (opens in a new tab)\">pennants<\/a>, and so much more!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>There are more English words beginning with the letter s than with any other letter mainly because of clusters such as sc, sh, sp, and st. Followed by some distance are words that begin with p, c, d, m, and a. According to Wolfram Language, a computational knowledge engine, in a list of 40,127 common [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2765,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[94],"tags":[132,20,104,1341,101,1345,11,1340,1338,1344,1337,1074,1339,1343,1342],"class_list":{"0":"post-2747","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-fun-facts-about-english","8":"tag-alphabet","9":"tag-donalds-english-classroom","10":"tag-english-language","11":"tag-english-words","12":"tag-fun-facts","13":"tag-initial-letters","14":"tag-kinney-brothers-publishing","15":"tag-language-patterns","16":"tag-language-trivia","17":"tag-letter-frequency","18":"tag-linguistic-analysis","19":"tag-linguistic-phenomena","20":"tag-wolfram-language","21":"tag-word-cloud","22":"tag-word-statistics","23":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/kinneybrothers.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/11\/040.jpg?fit=1252%2C1252&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p8GlQB-Ij","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kinneybrothers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2747","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kinneybrothers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kinneybrothers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kinneybrothers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kinneybrothers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2747"}],"version-history":[{"count":17,"href":"https:\/\/kinneybrothers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2747\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11055,"href":"https:\/\/kinneybrothers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2747\/revisions\/11055"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kinneybrothers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2765"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kinneybrothers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2747"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kinneybrothers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2747"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kinneybrothers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2747"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}